National Truth and Reconciliation Day is Not Just a Day Off, Okanagan Indigenous Leaders Warn | The Canadian News

WARNING: This story contains details that readers may find disturbing. Discretion Advised.

“Never more.”

Those two words are on a monument in the southern Okanagan, which marks the spot where local indigenous children were loaded onto cattle trucks before being taken to residential schools in Kamloops and Cranbrook.

They are also the two words that one of the men survived by being separated from his family in that same place and all the traumas that followed will be reflected on September 30, the first Day of Truth and Reconciliation.

The new statutory federal holiday was approved last year by Parliament and is intended to provide a moment of reflection. But Jack Kruger, a residential school survivor living in Syilx territory, is among those who doubt the messages.

What are we reconciling? I would like to know. I can’t celebrate that day, ”Kruger said. “I can’t celebrate when I’m alive and they are dead.”

Kruger speaks frankly and regularly about the friends he lost and the horrors he experienced while in the residential school system. He claims that he saw sexual abuse and violence, he knows of children who died at the hands of those who were supposed to care for them. Talk about everything so you can be the voice of those who did not survive.

It’s not easy to do, but he wants to make sure that no one loses sight of what happened to so many boys and girls, like him, in those years.

However, it remains to be seen whether all those horrors are what non-Indians will ponder today, Okanagan Indian leaders said.

“I think it’s a good baby step. It’s good that there is some national reconciliation, ”said Osoyoos Indian gang boss Clarence Louie.

“For the average Canadian it’s, ‘Wow, I’m going on vacation, I applaud, I can sleep in late or I’m going to play golf or go shopping or whatever I do on normal vacations.’

He doesn’t see it as a time to reflect on residential schools or indigenous issues in this country, but he said it is still a good step.

“The residential school system is something to remember, the orange jersey is something to remember,” he said.

However, his hope is that people take at least an hour of that time to figure out why they are “taking a day off with pay,” because that story is important to consider.

Big Chief Stewart Philip said he believes Canadians tend to shy away from their history.

“The general public doesn’t want to embrace their own story, they want to deny it. The general public still denies it, ”he said.

“Once again, the discovery of the unidentified graves, which now number in the thousands, is forcing them to examine the essential need for genuine reconciliation measures.”

The federal government said it established the legal holiday to honor lost and surviving children from residential schools, their families and communities. Public commemoration of the tragic and painful history and continuing impacts of residential schools is a vital component of the reconciliation process.

It is also Orange Shirt Day, an indigenous-led grassroots memorial day that honors children who survived the residential school system and remembers those who did not.

“This day is related to the experience of Phyllis Webstad, a Northern Secwpemc (Shuswap) of the Stswecem’c Xgat’tem First Nation, on her first day of school, where she arrived dressed in a new orange shirt, which was removed, “says the federal government on the page that marks today.

“Now it is a symbol of the dispossession of culture, freedom and self-esteem that indigenous children experienced for generations.”

The Indigenous Residential Schools Resolution Health Support Program has a hotline to assist residential school survivors and their family members who experience trauma caused by memories of past abuse. The number is 1-866-925-4419.