I recently attended a flag-raising event honouring survivors of the residential school experience at Royal Victoria Regional Health Centre (RVH) in Barrie as a guest of the Indigenous patient services team, which had asked me to speak on Truth and Reconciliation.
The event was held in a courtyard and was well attended by RVH staff and dignitaries. Our hosts at RVH began the day with the requisite land acknowledgement. In my mind, I am thankful for the gesture. It is a step in the right direction. But I also know that, traditionally, for the First Nations, a land acknowledgement also spoke of the relationship between nations and how that relationship would be maintained and preserved.
Upon being invited to speak, I took a slow pan of the audience, and I was impressed at the number of orange shirts worn by the spectators. That made for an easy start to my address, so I began with an observation about how I have been a part of these flag raisings for many years now throughout Simcoe County. When I first began, five years ago, I and any other Indigenous people who attended these events were very visible. We were the only people wearing orange shirts with the slogan ‘Every Child Matters’ on them.
For the uninitiated, the orange shirt represents the experience of residential school survivor Phyllis Webstad. If you’re not familiar with who that is, I invite you to research who she is, and you will learn the story of Orange Shirt Day and what it means for the survivors of the residential school experience.
I was so impressed and moved by the number of orange shirts in the audience at RVH that I thanked them for being there in such great numbers. I encouraged them to bring friends to the next event. I reminded them about how we, Indigenous people, have stood with you as allies to the Crown since the War of 1812. We stood with you in great numbers through the First and Second World Wars. We stood with you as allies once more in Korea and again without question in Afghanistan.
Locally, we stood with you in 1837-38 during the Upper Canada Rebellion. Even more recently, we stood with you during the Site 41 protests in 2009 to stop a mega dump from being built on land that nurtures the cleanest water on the entire planet.
You’re welcome.
But we don’t see enough of you standing beside us. Reconciliation will happen when we see you returning the favour and standing with us as allies, as treaty partners, as we challenge governments on any or all of the lengthy list of grievances and wrongs being committed against Indigenous people in this country.
Take your pick. There is the struggle to ensure Indigenous people have clean drinking water, sufficient housing for their families, proper access to adequate medical care.
That Canada’s national police force serves and protects our people, too, not brings harm to them.
That Indigenous women can be safe to travel across the country without fear of being terrorized or killed.
That past promises made during treaty making are finally lived up to so Indigenous people can return to the same prosperity they enjoyed prior to contact and even after that, when we were a huge part of the world economy during the fur trade.
Orange shirts one day of the year is a good start, but let’s move beyond this and land acknowledgements that seem more and more to be self-serving and performative. Take any one of the 94 calls to action that were adopted by the Government of Canada in the 2015 Truth and Reconciliation report and, as allies, create a response.
Stand with us. As we have stood with you.
Jeff Monague is a former chief of Beausoleil First Nation on Christian Island, former treaty research director with the Anishnabek (Union of Ontario Indians), and veteran of the Canadian Forces. Monague, who taught the Ojibwe language with the Simcoe County District School Board and Georgian College, is currently the manager of Springwater Provincial Park. His column appears regularly.
