Canada marks first National Day for Truth and Reconciliation
CTV
Communities across Canada are set to mark the country's first National Day for Truth and Reconciliation today, honouring Indigenous survivors and children who disappeared from the residential school system.
Singing and drumming were scheduled to ring out at 2:15 p.m. from Kamloops where the Tk'emlups te Secwepemc Nation announced in May that ground-penetrating radar had detected what are believed to be 215 unmarked graves at the site of one of the largest former residential schools.
Numerous Indigenous nations have since reported finding unmarked graves at former residential school sites with the same technology used in Kamloops, prompting calls for justice that have resonated across the world.
The federal government announced the new statutory holiday in June to commemorate the history and ongoing impacts of the church-run institutions where Indigenous children were torn from their families and abused.
Terry Teegee, regional chief of the B.C. Assembly of First Nations, said it's a day to reflect on that terrible history, and also to think about how to address the effects of 150 years of residential school policies that aimed to "kill the Indian in the child."
