KIIWETINOONG — Sol Mamakwa believes the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation should be a statutory holiday for all Ontarians, and he will be introducing a private member’s bill to that effect.
The New Democrat MPP for Kiiwetinoong is set to introduce the bill on Thursday after a news conference in Toronto.
He will present his case for the bill in Anishininiimowin (Oji-Cree) and speak in that language in question period as well.
“I think it’s important that we acknowledge a day of reflection for Indian residential schools on Sept. 30 and make it a statutory holiday within Ontario, because it’s a day where Ontarians have a day to learn about history, learn what Orange Shirt Day is and how to take action for truth and reconciliation,” he said in Wednesday in an interview from Queen’s Park.
“It’s always the First Nations that take the day off themselves, do their own thing,” he said.
But under his plan, he said, all Ontarians “would have the day off for reflection, to learn the real history of the schools that people attended.
“When we say holiday, it is not the right word, but it is a day of reflection and learning and mourning, and it needs to be recognized by the province.”
Presently, Truth and Reconciliation Day is a federal holiday, meaning it’s a day off for federal employees and workers in federally regulated sectors, but not a provincial statutory holiday in Ontario.
Reflection on Sept. 30 is a step forward in meaningful public understanding of the impacts of more than 150 years of Indigenous children being placed in residential schools away from their homes and cultures, Mamakwa said.
“We need to start somewhere, and this is a first step towards reconciliation,” he said.
T&R Day is recommended in Call to Action No. 80 of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s final report, he noted.
“But it’s only for federal workers and First Nations. I think we need to go further than that, to have it as a provincial holiday.”
Mamakwa said he expects his bill will go unopposed on first reading but where it goes from there is unclear.
It might never make it out of committee deliberations or “die on the order paper” when the legislative session ends, he said.
Just raising the matter in the house and introducing the bill will be a win, he said.
He said his two previous private member’s bills, on the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous People and on clean drinking water, both “died on the order paper” as the legislative session ended.
Mamakwa, from Kingfisher Lake First Nation, represents a majority-Indigenous electoral district spanning 294,000 square kilometres of Northwestern Ontario.
