Over the past few years I have been honoured with the opportunity to speak at the Orange Shirt Day ceremony at Centennial Square in Victoria.
The event is organized by Eddie Charlie and Kristen Spray and hosted by Mayor Lisa Helps and the City of Victoria. Each year the crowd has grown and with each annual event courageous survivors of the Canadian residential and Indian day schools share their stories and powerful journey that brought them to that stage.
The residential and day schools were horrific tools of colonial oppression, stripping language, culture and dignity. Below is the transcript from my few remarks at the 2019 edition of the Orange Shirt Day ceremony.
Residential school survivors
“I am one generation removed from the Indian day schools and two generations removed from residential school, someone said to me the other day, a little while ago, they asked me how I got political. I said well I was born where I was born, I was born and raised on a reserve, that makes all of us political. We have an Act, that manages every aspect of our life.
I hear the stories from my relatives who are survivors of the day school program and the residential school program, and hear how the language and the culture was attempted to be stripped from my relatives who went through those programs. That is why our government made such an investment in language, an incredible investment in language, I raise my hands to the Minister (Hon. Scott Fraser) and to the Minister of Finance (Hon. Carole James) who was here, for making that investment.
Those are steps, when the call about reconciliation came here today, for us to see real action on reconciliation, I believe that those investments in language are steps towards reconciliation, returning the language and the culture and the world view back to the hearts and the minds of our children.
My seven year old daughter is now in SENĆOŦEN immersion program at the ȽÁU,WELṈEW̱ school out on the Saanich Peninsula and it’s benefitting from those investments in language. And so I encourage all governments, at all levels to continue to make investments in language revitalization and language restoration.
From language to repatriation
If there was one more thing that I would call on governments to do that is a real step towards reconciliation and that’s to deal with the repatriation issues that we have. Far too many of our ancestors are still locked up in buildings here and around the world. Far too many of our items of cultural importance, (items of ) cultural significance, are locked up behind glass cases for people to view. They have no business being where they are, they should be right in our communities and that would be a real, not a symbol of reconciliation, but a real action of reconciliation to get our people home, our ancestors home, and to get those items of really important cultural significance back into the hands of the people who should rightfully be carrying those forward and handing them on.
I thank my colleagues for the investments that they have made in Indigenous language restoration and I think that we should continue that process forward.
Finally, I just want to say to Eddie (Charlie) and to Kristen (Spray) who are sitting uncomfortably right behind me so I can’t really look at them while I’m talking to them, and to Mayor Lisa Helps. I remember being at the first Orange Shirt Day ceremony, I believe it was at Camosun. I remember the words from Mayor Helps that she was going to help take this (event) forward. I’ve been at the events ever since. I think I’m getting the history right on this aren’t I? Yes? Here we are now down at Centennial Square and we have had four or five events since then. Mayor Helps did as she said she was going to do, she gave a home for this.
Kristen and Eddie thank you for your work to ensure that our community continues to never forget those children that were left behind and to never forget those children that are still at those residential school sites so that we can stand here today as part of this ceremony.
HÍSW̱ḴE SI¸ÁM”
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