Eve of 1st National Day for Truth and Reconciliation sees May Simon, Trudeau call for unity
Global News
Several residential school survivors told their stories at a ceremony Wednesday night on Parliament Hill ahead of Thursday's inaugural Truth and Reconciliation Day.
Governor General Mary May Simon had some very personal reflections Wednesday on the eve of Canada’s first National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.
As the daughter of a white father and Inuk mother, May Simon said in a statement that she was not allowed to attend a residential school.
She stayed behind and was home-schooled while other children were ripped away from their homes, separated from their families and sent to residential schools where they were not allowed to speak an Indigenous language or honour their culture.
May Simon, who was born in an Inuit village in northern Quebec, recalled visiting families where the absence of children was a “palpable void.”
“I was a stand-in, a well-loved substitute, for mothers and fathers who desperately missed their children,” she said.
“We all felt it. The sorrow of missing a part of our community.”
Several residential school survivors told their stories at a ceremony Wednesday night on Parliament Hill ahead of Thursday’s inaugural Truth and Reconciliation Day.