Remind our partners, allies and fellow Canadians that everyone needs to understand Truth – Debwewin – before we can truly move on to Reconciliation.
Truth means:
- Appreciating and believing the history, personal stories and perspectives of Residential School survivors, Elders and Traditional Knowledge keepers.
- Appreciating Indigenous perspectives and worldview and incorporating this in all parts of our society.
- Learning the history and modern reality of Indigenous peoples as nations.
- Understanding concepts such as assimilation, colonization and genocide.
- Appreciating the need to ‘rights-the-wrongs’ from the Residential School experience, the 60s Scoop and intergenerational trauma.
- Being an advocate for action to improve social conditions and Indigenous health and wellness.
- Knowing the fundamental importance of restoring culture, language and identity.
- Protecting and restoring Treaty-protected and Indigenous Rights including the inherent right to self-determination.
Truth is all these things.
Without Truth, Reconciliation will forever be misunderstood as a time-limited and politically-motivated effort in social equity, diversity or a special interest rather than what it should be: holding up Indigenous nations as a founding nation of Canada.
Happy Indigenous Peoples Day, everyone.