Orange Shirt Day 2021
Today marks Orange Shirt Day, a day that started in 2013 when Phyllis Webstad shared her story of the orange shirt taken from her on her first day of residential school with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Since then, the day has spread across Canada and for the first time, September 30th will be recognized as the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. A day to honour the survivors of residential schools and those who didn’t make it.
This year, the day has extra meaning for all Canadians. After a summer where the gravesites of thousands of children were confirmed across the grounds of former schools there is no longer any space to ignore or brush aside this chapter of Canadian history and its impact on the lives of Indigenous people today. Indigenous people have been telling Canadians for decades that their children were missing, mistreated, or dead. These accounts were often ignored, even when they were included in the 2015 TRC Calls to Action. So many Indigenous people across Trutle Island have been carrying the weight of shame because of their experiences in the Residential School System. It’s time that we as Canadians take our turn carrying the burden. This makes reconciliation hard; it makes us feel uncomfortable, it may even make us upset. That’s the point.
As a healthcare organization, we have a role to play in reconciliation. It begins with naming the genocide of Indigenous people in Canada. We are also committed to ongoing learning which is why all of our staff have participated in Ontario Core Indigenous Cultural Safety (ICS) Enhanced Health Training and why this September 30th we will continue to revisit the history of residential schools by watching and reflecting on videos created by the Orange Shirt Society.
We recognize that the TRC Calls to Action are not only directed to the different levels of government, rather calls such as #22 call upon all “those who can effect change within the Canadian health-care system to recognize the value of Aboriginal healing practices and use them in the treatment of Aboriginal patients in collaboration with Aboriginal healers and Elders where requested by Aboriginal patient” and as a result, CIHC is also committed to collaborating with Indigenous healthcare providers in the provision of abortion care.
We know a blog post and training aren’t nearly enough. We hope, however, that this work is still meaningful and contributes to our role in reconciliation.