
Artist donates orange shirts, Indigenous books to Montreal schools to 'spark a conversation'
CBC
An Inuk artist has designed, made and donated more than 200 orange shirts to schools in Montreal's West Island in an effort to start a dialogue and help strengthen Indigenous history education.
"So many Canadians are not informed or they've never been educated on what Indigenous people went through," said Jennifer Qupanuaq May.
Following the discovery of unmarked graves at residential school sites, she was determined to contribute to the dialogue about Indigenous history.
May has made about 400 shirts over the last three months in the English, French and Mohawk languages as well as four dialects of Inuktitut and two of Cree.
"Just the children going home with the shirts, maybe it will spark a conversation within the family and they may want to learn more about Indigenous history," she said.
"It may not be the happiest history of Canada, but it's still important."
Thursday marks the first National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. It is also known as Orange Shirt Day. The orange shirts honour the Indigenous children who were sent away to residential schools in Canada as well as their families.

Health Minister Adriana LaGrange is alleging the former CEO of Alberta Health Services was unwilling and unable to implement the government's plan to break up the health authority, became "infatuated" with her internal investigation into private surgical contracts and made "incendiary and inaccurate allegations about political intrigue and impropriety" before she was fired in January.