Should Orange Shirt Day be a stat? Minister wonders who would spend the time reflecting

EDITOR’S NOTE: This article originally appeared on The Trillium, a Village Media website devoted to covering provincial politics at Queen’s Park

Ontario's minister of Indigenous Affairs would like to know how the province's civil servants spent their day off for the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, or Orange Shirt Day.

Minister Greg Rickford appeared before a legislative committee studying the expenditure estimates on Friday and took questions from NDP deputy leader Sol Mamakwa on government spending on Indigenous holidays.

When Mamakwa asked if he'd support his forthcoming private member's bill to make the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation a statutory holiday, Rickford replied that it's something he's been actively discussing with Mamakwa and other Indigenous leaders.

One leader, he said, told him the day should not be a statutory holiday until every last child from residential schools was accounted for. The government has committed $92.4 million for the identification investigation and commemoration of burial sites at former residential schools, Rickford said. This year, that totals $32.1 million, with $17.1 million directed to burial investigations and $15 million for trauma and mental health supports for survivors, families and communities.

While Rickford said it wasn't his job to give his opinion but to balance others' competing opinions, he offered some insight into his thinking.

"We would not want to move to a holiday that would detract from what's actually going on right now, where kids are in school on that day, spending, in the case of my own little girls, almost the entire day, and if not the entire week, learning about these experiences," he said. "Would we want to take one day off from that?"

A scan of LinkedIn suggests the private sector is also invested in building residential school awareness among their workers, he said. "Is the answer giving them a vacation day for that?"

He noted that Ontario civil servants have the day off to mirror their federal colleagues and said it could be helpful to find out how they spend that day.

"Would it be useful to canvas them and say, 'Hey, we're just interested in trying to understand what meaningful activities did you participate in on that day?'" he wondered.

Rickford likened it to Remembrance Day and said he believes it's benefited younger generations to spend the day in school learning about the sacrifices made in war rather than taking it as a "vacation day where they might not otherwise engage in those activities."

"Thank you for the answer, and I know that that's a typical response that I've been getting from non-First Nations Indigenous people that had no experience with Indian residential schools on the treatment of our people, right?" responded Mamakwa, and suggested that Ontario designated all of September as Orange Shirt Month to make sure that learning still takes place along with the statutory holiday.

When the federal Liberal government established the first National Day for Truth and Reconciliation in 2021, provinces were given a choice on whether or not it should be a statutory holiday, and Ontario opted against it. On the first day it was recognized, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spent the day in Tofino with his family after turning down invitations to spend the day with Indigenous communities, which he was intensely criticized for. Trudeau later apologized and said he'd spoken by phone with residential school survivors from across the country that day.

The NDP questioned Rickford on a range of issues at the estimates hearing, which is meant for scrutiny of the ministry's spending plans. Leader Marit Stiles sought answers on how much the government is spending fighting a lawsuit from Grassy Narrows First Nation over the long-term harm of mercury poisoning the English-Wabigoon river, caused by a nearby paper mill's toxic waste, but the question was deemed out of order.

Stiles also sought clarification from the minister on which of the recommendations from the Seven Fallen Feathers inquest have not yet been met — the government's estimates indicate there are six, but it has not identified them, according to the NDP. The inquest was conducted in 2015 into the deaths of Jethro Anderson, Curran Strang, Paul Panacheese, Robyn Harper, Reggie Bushie, Kyle Morrisseau, and Jordan Wabasse, all Indigenous youth who died after going to Thunder Bay to attend school.

Rickford replied that of the 61 recommendations directed at Ontario, the government completed 14 last year and he would get the outstanding six to the NDP in writing. Completed recommendations include multi-year education funding and funding for safe-sobering sites for First Nations youth in Thunder Bay, he said.