By Josh Hall (Twitter: @Vancan19)

Local Elder believes new holiday needed to educate Canadians

Aug 26, 2018 | 11:59 PM

The federal government has stated its plans to fulfill one of the key calls to action from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) — the implementation of a new statutory holiday.

Two potential dates are being looked at — June 21 which is currently known as National Indigenous Peoples Day, and Sept. 30 which is Orange Shirt Day.

Maggie Loney, a community Elder with Red Deer’s Urban Aboriginal Voices Society, believes there should be a stat holiday, but it needs to be multi-faceted.

“I’d like to have it encompass education from the past, the truth, and I’d like to see it honour those who never made it home and honour those who survived residential schools,” says Loney, whose mother and grandmother both went through the residential school system..

She says the list of other subjects and past atrocities against Indigenous peoples which could be better taught to Canadians dates back more than a century to the days of Canada’s first prime minister Sir John A. McDonald, whose connection to residential schools recently became the focus of debate when Victoria city council removed his statue.

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“We can’t say he never existed. We also can’t say everything is to be blamed on him. He started things, yes, most definitely, but we can’t erase him from history any more than we can erase residential schools,” says Loney. “So does he deserve the statue? Well, maybe not, but maybe there should be something that represents both sides. Do Canadians know what his history means or do they just think he was a politician?”

Loney, who was removed from her home and put in foster care at just three-years-old, insists any new holiday the government creates needs to be centred around education. Without that as the cornerstone, she feels history is doomed to repeat itself.

“These people are the first peoples of this land, the original people, and it’s a bit of a marred part of Canadian history, but it’s the truth,” she says. “If some people think they’re tired of hearing about these things, well we haven’t really spoken all of these truths that have happened for more than 100 years and education about that needs to happen.”

Loney feels the stat holiday should take place in September. 

“I wouldn’t want it around National Indigenous Peoples Day in June because that’s a celebration of culture. For a lot of communities, it’s a full week of that, trying to create partnerships with stakeholders and building up things.”

In 2015, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau committed to implementing all 94 of the TRC’s calls to action.

Once implemented, the new holiday would mean a day off work for federal employees, while provinces and territories would need to change their own labour codes if they so choose to mark the day in the same way.