Victoria Mayor Marianne Alto has released the following statement for tomorrow’s National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.
“The National Day for Truth and Reconciliation honours the children who never returned home from, and survivors of, residential schools, their families and communities. Public realization of this shameful history and the ongoing impacts of residential schools is essential to our country’s reconciliation. September 30 is one opportunity for Indigenous and non-Indigenous members of our community to come together to hear and learn from survivors and acknowledge the immense harm and suffering Canada’s residential school system inflicted on generations of Indigenous families across the country.
Tomorrow is a day for each of us to recognize the ongoing, intergenerational trauma caused by residential schools and the forced separation of Indigenous children from their families, communities, cultures, and languages.
But it is also a day to honour and celebrate the resilience, resurgence and strength of Indigenous people.
The City of Victoria is once again honoured to be working in partnership with the Songhees Nation to mark this day by supporting the second annual South Island Powwow, taking place tomorrow on the homelands of the lək̓ʷəŋən people at Royal Athletic Park.
The South Island Powwow honours and recognizes survivors of Indian Residential and Day Schools and their families, the Sixties Scoop and the children who never made it home from these vile institutions.