Candlelight vigil will mark National Day for Truth and Reconciliation in Calgary
Calgary activist hopes for ‘collective healing’
WARNING: This article is about residential schools, a topic which may be triggering and distressing to those with dealing with past trauma. A national 24-hour Indian Residential School Crisis Line is available at 1-866-925-4419.
Today marks the first National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, a day to honour the lost children and survivors of residential schools, their families and communities.
Calgary activist Autumn EagleSpeaker is organizing a candlelight vigil at 8 p.m. at the residential school memorial on the steps of Calgary City Hall.
"I think that providing that opportunity for people to come together in a vigil will make that space for a little bit of collective healing within our city," EagleSpeaker said.
"It's really going to be a solemn event about reflection and about honouring our ancestors, and our future generations … it's going to be welcome, of course, to all Calgarians to come out and just to be part and to witness that and to understand from an Indigenous perspective."
EagleSpeaker said when 215 unmarked graves were discovered at the Kamloops Indian residential school earlier this year, it felt like "a huge stab in the gut."
"Each time there have been more unearthings of mass graves, and bodies found, it just brings up a whole other level of trauma that I never experienced in previous years," she said.
EagleSpeaker said without direct action from Canadians into completing all of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's 94 Calls to Action, the day is just a symbolic gesture.
"I think to just say we're done with this and let's move on, it's really short-sighted and it really puts a damper on the whole aspect of healing throughout this time."
Linda ManyGuns, associate vice president of Indigenization and decolonization at Mount Royal University, said that she thinks Canada is moving in a new and different direction.
"There's understanding of the depth and reality of the truth is actually starting to filter in," she said.
ManyGuns said this year feels different compared to what has previously been commemorated as Orange Shirt Day.
"For the first time the educators, government, people, all factors of society are actually stepping forward and asking what is the truth? And I think that is what's different about this year."
Mayor Naheed Nenshi says city council supports the idea of creating an Indigenous gathering place but the search for a site has not been concluded.
"It's a slow moving process, but ultimately it is a process that will create a place that will last as a legacy for generations. So I'm feeling good about where we are at, of course I always want things to move more quickly but sometimes they do take time," he said.
Nenshi says city council has affirmed that it is committed to implementing all of the recommendations in the White Goose Flying report, the city's response to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission final report.
The report was named for Jack White Goose Flying, a teenager who died at a residential school in Calgary in 1899.