Day for Truth and Reconciliation is not a Holiday!

by Ronnie Neiman

September 30th marks the second year where Orange Shirt day has become the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation in Canada.

It is a day to honour the victims of the survivors of residential schools and Indian Day Schools, as well as to remember those that never came home.

Yet many businesses, and schools including Brandon University have their doors closed on that day, treating it as a statutory holiday. It is this reporters opinion that schools should not be closed this day. It is a day for teaching, and education. Not everyone knows the full truth of what happened at these schools, the abuse that Indigenous children went through, and the unreported deaths of many of these children.

Some even don't know that these event s even happened, or that it happened so recently, with the last Residential school closing in 1997 in Canada.

It is not good or happy history. It is a dark part of Canada’s recent and distant past, but it needs to be taught to others so that history doesn’t repeat itself.

Every child matters, no matter who they are.

Teaching this should be the most important, not getting another day off.