Ontario MPP seeks paid provincial holiday for Truth and Reconciliation day

Ontario's only First Nation representative at Queen's Park plans to soon table proposed legislation, in his own Indigenous language, to have the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation declared a paid provincial holiday.

Ontario's only First Nation representative at Queen's Park plans to soon table proposed legislation, in his own Indigenous language, to have the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation declared a paid provincial holiday.

The day is a federal statutory holiday, but not a provincial one in Ontario.

New Democrat deputy leader Sol Mamakwa, who represents the northwestern riding of Kiiwetinoong, wants Ontario to follow the federal government's lead and said he hopes Premier Doug Ford's Progressive Conservatives will support the idea.

"It's always First Nations who take the day off and do their thing and go reconcile, but I think it's important for other Ontarians to have that day off to acknowledge, to reflect, to mourn, to learn of the real history of residential school," Mamakwa said in an interview.

The day recognizes the abuse suffered by Inuit, First Nations and Metis people at hundreds of state- and church-run residential schools across the country.

It is a statutory holiday for federally regulated workers and employees in some other provinces such as British Columbia.

The day is an evolution of Orange Shirt Day, an initiative started in 2013 and inspired by Phyllis Webstad's story of having the orange shirt her grandmother gave her taken away when she arrived at a residential school in 1973 at the age of six.