Content warning: The materials below contain references to violence against Indigenous people. Please take care when engaging with them.  

National Indian Residential School Crisis Line for former residential school students: 1-866-925-4419 

September 30 is the national statutory holiday commemorating the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.

When it published its findings in 2015, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada issued 94 Calls to Action designed “to redress the legacy of residential schools and advance the process of Canadian reconciliation.”

Call to Action 80 states:

“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.”

Here are some resources to use on September 30 and after to learn, reflect, and consider how you can take meaningful action on reconciliation. These resources have been updated for 2023.

Participate 

• Truth and Reconciliation Week - September 25–30, 2023
  • Free, virtual education program for Grades 1–12
  • APTN live broadcast & special programming
• #History4Reconciliation​ Campaign – Reconciliation Thunder 
  A series of over 20 short videos will be posted periodically to raise awareness of important moments in history that are essential to understand the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s 94 Calls to Action. The goal is for this campaign is to encourage people across Turtle Island to reflect on our history and take action in a variety of ways.
   
• Yellowhead Institute
  The Yellowhead Institute is an Indigenous-led research and education centre based in the Faculty of Arts at Toronto Metropolitan University. Their website contains many excellent resources including original research, infographics, and an online community resource library that covers climate action, gender justice, treaties, abolition, truth and reconciliation, and much more. 
   
• 150 Acts of Reconciliation – Active History
  This list created in 2017 for the "Last 150 Days of Canada's 150" remains relevant today. It proposes actions that Canadians can undertake to encourage people to think about Indigenous-settler relationships in new ways. 
   
• Indigenous Canada - free online course, University of Alberta Faculty of Native Studies 
  From an Indigenous perspective, this course explores key issues facing Indigenous peoples today from a historical and critical perspective, highlighting national and local Indigenous-settler relations. Participants acquire a basic familiarity with Indigenous/non-Indigenous relationships. 

• Legacy of Hope Foundation 
  The Legacy of Hope Foundation is a national, Indigenous-led, charitable organization that has been working to promote healing and reconciliation in Canada for more than 19 years. Resources on First Nations, Métis, and Inuit experiences of residential “schools” and the Sixties Scoop, timelines, video testimonies, and original research publications are available on their comprehensive Education page. 
   
• VIDEA Learning Resources on Decolonization
  VIDEA is a non-profit organization that supports youth and communities to take leadership in developing their own sustainable solutions to inequity and injustice. They provide toolkits on decolonization on their Learning Resources page. 
   
• Indian Residential School History and Dialogue Centre online collection
  This site houses digital copies of public records related to the Indian residential school system and other colonial policies imposed on Indigenous peoples in Canada. They include survivor and intergenerational survivor testimonies, events and hearings from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, photographs, and government and church documents. As a whole, the collection makes colonial records and mechanisms visible while seeking to render survivor voices more central. Read more about the collection here.  
   
• Tracking Progress on the 94 Calls to Action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission
  • ​Indigenous Watchdog 
    Indigenous Watchdog, a federally registered non-profit, is committed to transforming the reconciliation dialogue between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Canadians into action. This site provides updates on the status of each call to action, including what percentage are complete, not started, stalled or in progress. 
     
  • Beyond 94 
    ​This interactive CBC News website monitors progress on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's 94 Calls to Action.
     
  • Assembly of First Nations, Progress on Realizing the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action (2020) 
     
  • Quebec Native Women, Provisional assessment of the Viens Commission: QNW welcomes actions taken but expects more (2021) 

• Commission and Inquiry Reports – 2015-2020

  • Reports and the 94 Calls to Action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (2015)

  • Reports and Calls for Justice, National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (2019)

  • Public Inquiry Commission on relations between Indigenous Peoples and certain public services in Québec: listening, reconciliation, and progress (2019) 
    Reports from the inquiry established after the broadcast of a news story that shared dozens of Indigenous women’s experiences with violence from police officers in in Val d’Or, Québec. 

  • Centre for Community Organizations, “What to know about the Viens Commission,” December 2019 

  • Not Enough: All Words and No Action on MMIWG / Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples (2020) 

• Telling Our Twisted Histories 
  This podcast series reclaims Indigenous history by exploring words whose meanings have been twisted by centuries of colonization. Episode 11 is on Reconciliation.

Header image is from "Wisdom of the Universe," a beautiful painting from award-winning Métis artist Christi Belcourt. 

Additional resources can be found on the Decolonization and Indigenous Issues page.