Are you ready to build the future of a country where everybody matters?

Part of what we are doing today by putting on an orange shirt is being brave, stepping up and saying that we all belong here – “everybody belongs here,” keynote speaker Dr. Niigaan Sinclair told UTS students at the assembly to mark the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, with the entire school attending in the Withrow Auditorium.  

“When we put on that orange shirt it means we see that we are no different from each other and we walk together, which is the biggest test of Reconciliation…,” said Sinclair. “Can we see each other as people who all deserve peace, justice, a language, a culture, and then can we move together? Can we help build a country together? Because that's what we're doing today.”

The next challenge: can we continue to keep the spirit of standing with our nation’s Indigenous peoples alive for the other 364 days of the year, and beyond. 

Niigaanwewidam James Sinclair is Anishinaabe, originally from St. Peter's (Little Peguis) Indian Settlement in southern Manitoba. A professor at the University of Manitoba, he’s also a renowned author, writer and speaker on Indigenous issues, with an award-winning column in the Winnipeg Free Press. His inspiring keynote marked the end of a moving assembly organized by our school’s Indigenous Solidarity Committee (ISC) that began, as all UTS assemblies do, with a personal Land Acknowledgment from one of our students or staff. 

ISC executive S5 (grade 11) Sophia acknowledged that UTS is on the traditional territory of many nations, including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishinaabe, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat peoples, and the land is covered by Treaty 13 with the Mississaugas of the Credit.

“Personally, when I think about these treaties, I'm reminded that I, too, am part of this history,” Sophia told the assembly. “As someone who benefits from living on this land, I have a responsibility to recognize the harm caused by colonialism… We all have a role in repairing the ways Canada has broken this trust. We must hold ourselves accountable.” 

One of our responsibilities is to learn the stories of Indigenous Canadians, and pass these stories forward into the next generation in order to take action, UTS Principal Dr. Leanne Foster told our students as she introduced the recorded Globe and Mail testimonial from Residential School Survivor Michael Cheena. A Cree from Moose Factory, Ontario, Michael was seven years old when he was taken from his home and forced to attend residential school at Bishop Horden Hall in Moose Factory and later, the Shingwauk School in Sault Ste. Marie. 

“The residential school system took away my language, culture and my identity,” Cheena said on the video, recalling the physical abuse and trauma he endured when he tried to share his food with the other children. Going to the residential school was the law, he recalls, and if he didn’t go, his parents would be sent to jail. 

After hearing his story, everyone stood for a minute of silence, as some of the more than 4,000 names of children who died in Canada’s residential schools scrolled past on the auditorium screen in a video created by S5 (grade 11) student Declan with names from the National Student Memorial Register,  maintained by the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation.

The sombre silence was broken by the powerful performance of our Junior and Senior Strings Ensemble, many wearing orange shirts, playing “Lost and Found,” an original composition for UTS by composer in-residence Cris Derksen, an internationally respected Indigenous cellist and composer from the North Tallcree Reserve in northern Alberta (listen to a clip of the performance below).

Sinclair was so impressed with the performance, he video-called his daughter in Ottawa to share the live performance before stepping on the stage. 

He noted the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation takes place on September 30, because that was the time of year many Indigenous people had someone show up in their home to take their children to the  residential schools. 

He told students that the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation in Toronto is not marked on the same scale as his home province of Manitoba, where one in five people is Indigenous and thousands of people are wearing orange shirts and marching in the streets, and both the Winnipeg Blue Bombers and Edmonton Elks wore orange jerseys during the warmup for their Canadian Football League. 

But it will come. He has seen the number of orange shirts increase every year, everywhere he goes. Next year, there will be more.  He reminded us that the word Canada is from the Indigenous word “kanata,”meaning “the village,” one which we are all a part of. With our country’s growing Indigenous population, being able to relate with and understand Indigenous peoples and cultures is more important than ever. 

“This is about your future and what it means to be Canadian and part of our nation,” he told students. “Today isn't about just thinking about the past, although that's important. Are you ready to make a future full of love, kindness, empathy, not just for Indigenous peoples, but for yourself? Are you ready to build the future of a country where everybody matters?” 

After the assembly, students and staff were given the opportunity to reflect on the keynote, and asked to commit to one action they can take this year to play their part in working towards Reconciliation, as well as to  provide input on what we can do as a school.  

Sinclair also met with Principal Foster, UTS Department Coordinators and school leadership in the Evans Library to discuss how to incorporate Indigenous perspectives into the school, explaining that it shouldn’t be isolated to one class or lesson but intertwined throughout the school experience, incorporating Indigenous ways of thinking and knowing. 

"Dr. Sinclair pointed out the fundamental challenge of incorporating Indigenous knowledge (focused on reciprocity, relationship and love) into an education system built on colonial and capitalist principles of competition and hyper-individualism,” said UTS English Department Coordinator James Campbell, who helped organize the assembly as staff supervisor of the ISC. “In thinking about this challenge he asked us to remember that Reconciliation is about ‘staying in the room, making mistakes, and holding each other through it. Fundamentally it's about answering the question: how do we build a country full of love?’"

Thank you to S5 John and The Twig for contributing photos to this article.