09/30/2026
Today is the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. But truth and reconciliation cannot belong to just one day. 🧡
Today we honour the children who never returned home, the Survivors of residential schools, their families and communities, and the generations who continue to live with their impacts.
We also remember that the harm went far beyond residential schools. Indigenous Peoples were separated from their lands and families. Languages and cultural practices were suppressed. Children were taught that who they were was something to leave behind. For generations, Indigenous voices were silenced or ignored.
And still, cultures, languages, traditions, knowledge and communities endured.
September 30 asks us to remember these truths. But it also asks us what we do with what we have learned.
Because every day, truth matters.
Every day, listening matters.
Every day, equality and respect matter.
Every day, culture and identity matter.
Every day, every person deserves to have a voice.
Every day, the way we treat one another matters.
The Dalai Lama has spoken about the need to transform how we educate future generations, to educate not only the mind, but also the heart, so that our children grow into responsible and caring human beings.
That feels especially meaningful today. Knowing our history matters. But knowledge alone is not enough. We also have to raise generations who have the compassion to care about what happened, the courage to listen to one another, and the understanding to choose a different way forward.
Reconciliation is not something we acknowledge once a year and then put away. It is an ongoing responsibility to listen, to learn, to understand the history of the land and communities around us, and to carry that understanding into how we live and what we teach the next generation.
Every Child Matters. Today and every day. 🧡
And perhaps one of the lessons we carry forward is simple: to live with greater compassion and respect for one another, for the land we share, and for all living beings. Today and every day.
Image source: Providence Health Care — Participating in Truth & Reconciliation
