Sept. 30 not just another day off, says Winnipeg Indigenous activist
Global News
A Winnipeg Indigenous activist and organizer says he doesn't want to see the new National Day for Truth and Reconciliation be treated as just another 'day off.'
You may not have to work or go to school this Thursday, but a Winnipeg Indigenous activist and organizer says he doesn’t want to see the new National Day for Truth and Reconciliation be treated as just another “day off.”
Michael Redhead Champagne told 680 CJOB that’s he’s nervous many Canadians who aren’t personally affected by the residential school system will see it as just another holiday and nothing more — when there’s still so much work to do toward reconciliation.
“One of the ways we can look at this … is not as a day off, but looking at it as national truth and reconciliation day of action,” Champagne said.
“There are 94 calls to action that exist out there, and I’m a little bit sad sometimes when I talk to non-Indigenous people, because very few have actually read all 94 calls to action.
“So what I’d love to see is non-Indigenous people on Sept. 30 taking the lead about educating themselves on these calls to action, or even better, moving — in some kind of a system way — forward with some of these calls to action.”
While he said there’s a sense of relief among Indigenous people that the day is being federally acknowledged, and the government is taking some degree of action on this issue, there’s still the potential that something could be lost by giving students — in particular — a day off school.
The federal government implemented Sept. 30 as the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, a statutory holiday for all federal employees and federally regulated workplaces. It’s a direct response to one of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s calls to action.
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