Ontario NDP's Sol Mamakwa wants provincial holiday for truth and reconciliation day
CBC
Ontario's only First Nation representative at Queen's Park plans to 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 Métis 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.
Mamakwa, who was forced into a residential school himself, said he's seen the horrors of those institutions first-hand.
He plans to introduce a private member's bill in November to push for a provincial holiday.
"There's no wrong in it, it's the only right thing to do," said Mamakwa, who is from Kingfisher Lake First Nation.
"Rather than just a day of reflection, rather than just a day of mourning, it should be more than that, where all Ontarians have a day off and they can learn about the that day, what Orange Shirt Day is, what truth and reconciliation is."
Greg Rickford, Ontario's minister of Indigenous affairs, said he was "not entirely persuaded" by Mamakwa's idea but did not dismiss it.
"We have not reviewed the proposed legislation so we don't want to presuppose anything," he said in a written statement.
"I am not entirely persuaded that designating the day a holiday will do it justice."
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