It looks like if a statutory Indigenous holiday does happen this year it will be in the fall instead of summer.
Northern Saskatchewan NDP MP Georgina Jolibois had put forward a private member’s bill to make National Indigenous Peoples Day on June 21 a federally recognized statutory holiday.
However, in a House of Commons committee meeting Tuesday afternoon, the bill was amended to make the date Sept. 30 instead in honour of residential school survivors.
Jolibois says she has no problem with the change.
“Our job is how can we now move forward and focus on healing, building nations up and building communities,” she says. “That intent will always remain and I believe we can still have that discussion on Sept. 30.”
June 21 is Indigenous Peoples Day, a general celebration of Aboriginal culture, while Sept. 30 is Orange Shirt Day, which focuses on remembering the traumatic past of residential school survivors.
This day refers specifically to Phyllis Webstad whose orange shirt, given to her by her grandmother, was taken away from her on her first day of residential school.
The new holiday is slated to be called National Day for Truth and Reconciliation and is in response to The Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Call to Action Number 80.
Jolibois says as the Heritage Canada Committee sought feedback on the legislation from various groups it became clear the latter date would be more appropriate for a federal statutory holiday than the former.
“I heard from Indigenous people – including elders, young people and those survivors that had gone to residential schools and boarding schools and day schools – that the language that is used is, ‘Our past is painful and horrific and Canada has acknowledged that.’”
The bill passed second reading last fall.
Any amendments would have to be voted on in Parliament before the legislation moves to the Senate, third reading and royal assent after which it would then come into force.
Jolibois says she remains hopeful her bill will come into effect this year.
However, regardless if the bill does pass, it would still need to be recognized by the Saskatchewan government in order to become a provincial statutory holiday.
(PHOTO: Northern Saskatchewan NDP MP Georgina Jolibois. File photo.)