For the thousands who never made it home

This will be a day of solemn reflection for many Canadians as the country marks its third annual National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. The federal statutory holiday, which falls on Sept. 30 each year, honours residential school survivors, along with their families, communities and the thousands of other children who never made it home.

What is the history of Canada’s residential school system?

It’s estimated that more than 150,000 First Nations, Métis and Inuit children attended residential schools in Canada. The system, which was operated by the federal government in partnership with the Anglican, Catholic, Methodist, and Presbyterian churches, among others, aimed to assimilate Indigenous children into the dominant culture by isolating them from their communities and traditions.

The first church-run residential school opened in 1831. The last one closed 27 years ago, in 1996.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC), which interviewed more than 6,000 witnesses, many of whom were residential survivors, detailed instances of physical and sexual abuse at residential schools in its landmark 2015 report. The TRC concluded that residential schools were “a systematic, government-sponsored attempt to destroy Aboriginal cultures and languages and to assimilate Aboriginal Peoples so that they no longer existed as distinct peoples,” going on to characterize the system as “cultural genocide.”

How many children died in the residential school system?

No one knows how many children died in Canada’s residential school system. In 2021, shortly after the discovery of 215 unmarked graves at the Kamloops Indian Residential School, the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation and the TRC said it had so far documented 4,117 deaths of Indigenous children at residential schools.

Justice Murray Sinclair, who headed the TRC, estimated there may be up to 6,000 deaths attributed to the residential school system.

The actual number of deaths, however, could be well beyond any previous estimates.

Why do people wear orange on National Day for Truth and Reconciliation?

The National Day for Truth and Reconciliation falls on the same day as Orange Shirt Day, an Indigenous-led grassroots movement that aims to raise awareness of the intergenerational impacts of the residential school system and reinforce the idea that “every child matters.” The commemorative day was started in 2013 by Phyllis Webstad, a residential school survivor who told her story about how her shiny orange shirt, gifted by her grandmother, was taken away on her first day at a residential school.