The National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, colloquially known as Orange Shirt Day is a Canadian memorial day to recognize the atrocities and multi-generational effects of the Canadian Indian residential school system. This occurs annually on September 30th since 2013. Canadians across the country are encouraged to wear an orange shirt in honour of Indigenous children who were sent away to residential schools.

Approximately 150 000 First Nations, Inuit and Metis Children were torn from their families and sent to these distant schools. At these institutions, children suffered neglect, abuse, and in thousands of cases, death. These schools were operated by Catholic and Protestant churches under the Canadian Government’s direction with the objective of removing children from the influence of their families, communities, language, culture and beliefs. Contact with families was largely forbidden, with only exceptional visits. Children were forced to adapt to the customs of European society, undergo an ethnic cleansing of their identity, have their personal belongings taken, be stripped of their clothes, and forbidden to speak their own languages. They were also banned from keeping their hair long – a practice deeply significant in many indigenous cultures.

The Orange Shirt itself carries a powerful and deep personal symbolism. In 1973, on her first day at residential school, Phyllis Webstad was given a new orange shirt by her grandmother. Upon arrival the six year old was stripped of her belongings, hair, language, culture, identity, and her favourite orange shirt.

It was not until 2008 that Prime Minister Stephen Harper issued a formal Statement of Apology to former students of Indian Residential Schools. To put this into perspective, the graduating class was born the same year this apology was made – a stark reminder of how recent these injustices were, and our ongoing responsibility to do better as a society. Canadians must acknowledge this history, listen to Indigenous voices, and commit to reconciliation in meaningful ways. I recommend watching the documentary film Sugarcane that follows an investigation into the Canadian Indian residential school system, igniting a feeling of recognition in the lives of survivors, and their descendants.

Sources

Wikipedia contributors. National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. Wikipedia, 31 Oct. 2025,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Day_for_Truth_and_Reconciliation. Accessed 31 Oct. 2025.

Webstad, Phyllis. Phyllis Webstad: Orange Shirt Story. YouTube, 2022,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GE1F5nBCOmME. Accessed 31 Oct. 2025.

Canadian Human Rights Commission. Canada’s Indian Residential Schools: Childhood Denied. Canadian Human Rights Commission,

https://humanrights.ca/story/canadas-indian-residential-schools-childhood-denied#:~:text=Assimilation%20and%20loss%20of%20identity,absorbed%20i Accessed Oct. 2025.

Sugarcane. Wikipedia, 2024,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugarcane_(film). Accessed 31 Oct. 2025