14 Sep Truth and Reconciliation Week
Dear Champlain Community,
In response to Action 80 from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s Calls to Action, Champlain-Lennoxville is looking forward to its continuing involvement in activities connected to the National Day of Truth and Reconciliation.
Action 80 reads: “We call upon the federal government, in collaboration with Aboriginal peoples, to establish, as a statutory holiday, a National Day for Truth and Reconciliation to 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.”
We are pleased to invite you to participate in a series of activities that commemorate in different in different ways this important Day, beginning with an Opening Ceremony on the morning of September 25th and culminating in the Every Child Matters Walk during the early afternoon of September 30th.
We will thus join together to honour Residential school survivors and their families, and we will have the opportunity to learn from First Nation leaders who are working to counter the legacy of residential schools and colonialism in their communities.
We want to emphasize that the challenge of reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples in Canada requires ongoing work and commitment. In her recent book True Reconciliation: How to Be a Force for Change, Jody Wilson-Raybould describes reconciliation as a marathon. She writes: ‘’True reconciliation is not an event. There is not a moment of time when it happens, and after which we can say “we are done” and move onto something else. It is an ongoing, long-term undertaking of creating new patterns of social, cultural, and economic relations as individuals, peoples, communities, and governments. It is about building a vision of the future that both addresses and breaks away from the legacy of colonialism. (p.270)’’.
It is our hope that through involvement in the process of reconciliation, we can also recognize ourselves as participating in the creation of “new patterns” of relationship.
To consult our schedule for Truth and Reconciliation Week, please click here.
