Last Thursday was Canada's first ever National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. The day honours the lost indigenous children and survivors of residential schools, their families and communities.
My work closed for the day. Oddly, even though I live in the nation's capital, there didn't seem to be any big events planned. I would have expected some recognition similar to what I'm used to with Remembrance Day. Eventually though I found out that an event was being held all day on Parliament Hill.
I made it to the site around 10:30 am. I found the area in front of Parliament to be populated by a crowd of orange-shirt wearing attendees. Some were indigenous, but there were also non-indigenous school groups there, families, couples and a smattering of interested individuals like me.
Again, somewhat oddly, there didn't seem to be any representative of the Government there.
As I listened to the speakers I noticed two very different tones. On the one hand, there were speakers who expressed great frustration and anger at what had transpired and indicated that actions would be taken on other indigenous-related issues going forward, like climate change. On the other hand, there were speakers who primarily expressed sadness and hope - sadness at what had been allowed to happen and hope that the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation represented a first step in Canada's myriad people moving forward in a spirit of empathy and understanding.
I was left to wonder which tone represents the most likely immediate future for my country.... anger or hope? People tend to have short memories and it's easy to forget that just prior to COVID-19, here were indigenous blockades of railways across the country in protest of a natural gas pipeline in British Columbia.
Canada is sometimes thought of as a boring, calm little corner of the world, and compared to many other regions, that may be true. But there is a lot left to be written about my country's relationship with its first peoples.
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