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Reconciliation includes recognizing Residential Schools are not the only colonial atrocity

September 30, 2025

By Wade Paul

Sept. 30 is upon us once again, the fourth year this day will be observed as a time to reflect on the history of colonialism, and its ongoing impacts, on the Indigenous Peoples and communities in what is now called Canada.

This day first became recognized as Orange Shirt Day by grassroots organizers in 2013, when Canadians honour the Survivors of Residential Schools and acknowledge the intergenerational effects of these institutions on Indigenous Peoples.

Inspired by Survivor Phyllis Webstad’s testimony shared with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) — where she described how the orange shirt her grandmother had given her was taken away on her first day of Residential School — the orange shirt emerged as an enduring symbol of Indigenous resilience.

While we continue to wear orange shirts to honour Survivors and acknowledge that not every child returned home, the federal government in 2021 officially declared Sept. 30 a statutory holiday and called it the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation (NDTR).

Truth-telling

In this country, reconciliation is an ongoing process of repairing and rebuilding the relationship between Indigenous Peoples and settlers, and the relationship between Indigenous Peoples and the Canadian government.

It has often taken the form of truth-telling probes such as the TRC, which ran from 2008 to 2015, collecting testimony from Survivors and their communities and examining the systemic harms caused.

Understanding the Residential Schools system has been an important starting point. That said, it was only one of the many destructive and assimilationist tactics imposed upon Indigenous Peoples.

This year, in addition to learning more about Residential Schools, I invite you to learn about some of the many other culturally devastating practices: the Potlatch Ban, the Sixties Scoop, the Millennium Scoop, the forced and coerced sterilization of Indigenous women and the contemporary concerns Indigenous Nations and groups face today as a result of this history.

No songs, dances or large gatherings

While Residential Schools were designed to cut off Indigenous children from their languages, families and teachings, the Potlatch Ban sought to suppress associations and criminalize cultural and spiritual practices among adults.

The Potlatch Ban, instituted in 1885 through an amendment to the Indian Act, prohibited Indigenous ceremonies, including songs, dances and gatherings that were deemed to be too large or threatening to colonial authorities.

This effectively made potlatches (ceremonial assemblies practised by Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast to mark important events such as births, marriages or funerals), sun dances (sacred ceremonies of spiritual renewal that are held annually by many First Nations peoples from the Prairies) and powwows (gatherings featuring music, dancing, eating and the trading or selling of goods) illegal until the ban was lifted in 1951.

These ceremonies, however, continued underground, with one of the most infamous instances being Chief Dan Cranmer’s potlatch on Christmas Day in 1921. Although the potlatch was held in secret, it was attended by at least 300 guests and was ultimately raided by Indian agents, resulting in 45 people being arrested and charged.

Officials confiscated more than 750 cultural items used in the potlach, the bulk of which were sent to the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) in Toronto, the Museum of the American Indian in New York and the then‐National Museum in Ottawa, now called the Canadian Museum of History.

The museums held these items in their collection from 1922 until the ROM began the process of repatriation by returning its portion of the collection in 1988.

The foster care crisis

Many Indigenous children were forcibly taken from their families and placed in non-Indigenous homes by child welfare authorities in a practice known as the Sixties Scoop, which went on from the 1960s to the 1980s.

It is estimated that more than 20,000 Indigenous children were separated from their families and funnelled into the Canadian child welfare system for assimilationist purposes.

Families were dismantled as siblings were dispersed to new homes, sometimes even in different countries. This succeeded in disconnecting Indigenous children from their roots and families. Many of these adopted children discovered their true heritage only later in life as adults.

Since 2021, Survivors of the Sixties Scoop have been calling for a separate national inquiry to trace the histories of erasure and loss experienced by the displaced children.

Even more alarming is that the forced removal of Indigenous children from their families continues today, a reality now often referred to as the Millennium Scoop.

According to Statistics Canada, although Indigenous children account for only 7.7 per cent of Canada’s child population, they comprise more than 53 per cent of children in foster care.

The sterilization of Indigenous women

Indigenous women have borne a disproportionate amount of this colonial violence. This reality was acknowledged and further investigated through the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG).

One harrowing example is the forced or coerced sterilization of Indigenous women. In her 2015 book An Act of Genocide: Colonialism and the Sterilization of Aboriginal Women, women’s and gender studies scholar Karen Stote detailed how more than 500 Indigenous women were sterilized in federal hospitals between 1971 and 1974.

In 2021, a report from the Canadian Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights concluded that the prevalence of the practice is both “under-reported and under-estimated” and continues to occur today. In 2023, Sen. Yvonne Boyer stated that although it’s hard to determine precisely, at least 12,000 Indigenous women were affected between 1971 and 2018 — some as young as 17.

Modern-day remnants of colonialism

It’s important to remember that Indigenous Peoples and their concerns are not simply a part of Canada’s history. The issues facing them have evolved, as have their needs.

The Aamjiwnaang First Nation, for example, an Anishinaabe community situated near Sarnia, Ont. along the St. Clair River in a patch of land commonly known as “Chemical Valley,” has a highly localized challenge. The region has been home to 40 per cent of the country’s petrochemical companies, including Shell Canada, Bayer, Dow Chemical and DuPont.

The sustained presence of these businesses has resulted in significantly elevated levels of chemical pollution. Air monitoring data show that residents of Aamjiwnaang are exposed to 30 times more benzene than people living in Toronto or Ottawa.

The region, including Aamjiwnaang and the city of Sarnia, records more hospitalizations for respiratory illnesses than nearby Windsor and London. Similarly, a Western University study found that 25 per cent of children in Sarnia have been diagnosed with asthma, compared to only 17 per cent in London.

Additionally, other troubling trends have been observed in Aamjiwnaang regarding gender distribution among newborns, where males made up about 35 per cent of children instead of the expected 51 per cent.

Another ongoing and pervasive challenge facing a number of Indigenous communities is the lack of access to clean drinking water.

Though the right to clean drinking water was at the core of then-Liberal candidate Justin Trudeau’s 2015 campaign promise to end boil-water advisories within five years, a decade later there remain 39 long-term and 38 short-term advisories affecting First Nations across the country.

Reconciliation is an ongoing process

As the Canadian settler state and Indigenous Peoples continue this process of truth-telling and reconciliation, it’s important to remember that Residential Schools were one part of a much larger colonial strategy to assimilate Indigenous Peoples and erase Indigenous cultures, languages, traditions, practices and governance systems.

And as you observe this National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, consider learning even more about the many other tactics.

This way, we can acknowledge past harms, work to address current realities and look to foster meaningful engagements with Indigenous communities.

Wade Paul, Phd Candidate History, Concordia University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.