{"id":201216,"date":"2019-02-07T04:48:18","date_gmt":"2019-02-07T09:48:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=201216"},"modified":"2019-02-07T04:57:59","modified_gmt":"2019-02-07T09:57:59","slug":"federal-bill-would-make-sept-30-holiday-for-indigenous-reconciliation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2019\/02\/07\/federal-bill-would-make-sept-30-holiday-for-indigenous-reconciliation\/","title":{"rendered":"Federal bill would make Sept. 30 holiday for Indigenous reconciliation"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
FILE: JUNE 24, 2017: A close up and detailed view of the back of a Pow Wow dancer\u2019s colourful outfit at the 2017 Ottawa Summer Solstice Indigenous Festival at Vincent Massey Park (Photo: Bing Wen \/ Shutterstock.com)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

OTTAWA — Sept. 30 might become a new statutory holiday commemorating victims of residential schools.<\/p>\n

The House of Commons heritage committee approved a measure Tuesday to make the last day of September a National Truth and Reconciliation Day. That date is already used as an informal occasion to commemorate the experiences of residential-school students, called Orange Shirt Day.<\/p>\n

It’s called that in memory of a piece of a clothing then-six-year-old Phyllis Webstad had taken from her on her first day at a residential school in 1973.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe picked Sept. 30 because September was the time when children were taken away from their homes,\u201d she told the committee during a previous session, with the specific day chosen to give teachers time to tell modern children the history of the schools.<\/p>\n

The heritage committee added the new federal holiday into NDP MP Georgina Jolibois’ Bill C-369, which creates a National Indigenous Peoples’ Day on June 21. It has been meeting for the past few months to discuss the bill, hearing testimony from survivors and Indigenous leaders.<\/p>\n

Both the Native Women’s Association of Canada and the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, representing 60,000 Inuit people across Canada, expressed support for two separate dates.<\/p>\n

\u201cCombining a day of celebration with a day of reconciliation, in our view, is inappropriate and disrespectful,\u201d Virginia Lomax, a lawyer for NWAC, told the group on Jan. 29.<\/p>\n

Liberal MP Randy Boissonnault said Tuesday the additions were in keeping with call to action No. 80 from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which seeks a statutory holiday \u201cto honour survivors, their families, and communities, and ensure that public commemoration of the history and legacy of residential schools remains a vital component of the reconciliation process.\u201d<\/p>\n

The bill has yet to go to the Commons for a final vote.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

OTTAWA — Sept. 30 might become a new statutory holiday commemorating victims of residential schools. The House of Commons heritage …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":201222,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-201216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news-ca","category-news","mauthors-stephen-cook","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=201216"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201216\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/201222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}