Canada’s First National Day for Truth and Reconciliation
A Message from Pastor Greg on Canada’s First “National Day for Truth and Reconciliation”
Dear Church Family,
This Thursday, Sept. 30, Canadians are invited to participate in our nation’s first National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. To help understand the import of this day, let me share the following from the Government of Canada website:
The day honours the lost children and Survivors of residential schools, their families and communities. Public commemoration of the tragic and painful history and ongoing impacts of residential schools is a vital component of the reconciliation process. The creation of this federal statutory holiday was through legislative amendments made by Parliament. On June 3, 2021, Bill C-5, An Act to amend the Bills of Exchange Act, the Interpretation Act and the Canada Labour Code (National Day for Truth and Reconciliation) received Royal Assent.
Both the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation and Orange Shirt Day take place on September 30.
Orange Shirt Day is an Indigenous-led grassroots commemorative day that honours the children who survived Indian Residential Schools and remembers those who did not. This day relates to the experience of Phyllis Webstad, a Northern Secwpemc (Shuswap) from the Stswecem'c Xgat'tem First Nation, on her first day of school, where she arrived dressed in a new orange shirt, which was taken from her. It is now a symbol of the stripping away of culture, freedom and self-esteem experienced by Indigenous children over generations.
On September 30, we encourage all Canadians to wear orange to raise awareness of the very tragic legacy of residential schools, and to honour the thousands of Survivors.
How you can learn more
September 30 invites us to consider the complicated issues within Canadian culture and to examine these through the lens of Christian faith. Our denomination, Canadian Baptists of Atlantic Canada, formed the Indigenous Working Group to provide our church families with resources available for consideration, education and especially prayer and action. “Walking in a Good Way with Our Indigenous Neighbours” is a personal study course available online.
The webpage offers the following introduction:
This online course is designed for Canadian Baptists to help them learn from Indigenous voices and begin to walk as good neighbours and treaty people. In engaging in this learning, we as a Baptist family take seriously the calls of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
The course consists of reading, video, and audio curated from the vast amount of quality resources available online. This work has been done by the Indigenous Working Group of the CBAC. One of our priorities was to work on an education piece for churches. It will take a person approximately 20 hours to do, but as it is hosted on the website you are free to do this at a pace that is reasonable for you. Along with each component there is additional suggested readings and videos for you to dive into further, and we certainly encourage you to do that.
I commend this resource for your consideration. September 30 comes tomorrow and I hope that, at the very least, it will call our BSBC family to pray for healing in relationships with all who make up our Canadian family and for Christ’s disciples to find ways, individually and corporately, live a Micah 6:8 lifestyle.
He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?
Pastor Greg
P.S. Please note that recognition of The National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, your Board of Management has voted to close the church office on Sept. 30.
