10/06/2026
On September 30th, we gathered for the National Day of Truth and Reconciliation at Maple Meadows Farm in Port Colborne. It was a time to gather in community, to listen and reflect on what this day means to Métis people. Thank you to Senator Jean-Jacques for the prayers, to our speakers Mayor Bill Steele, President Pont and Ryan Schubert, Associate Director of Self-Government at the Métis Nation of Ontario. Thank you to dignitary MPP Jeff Burch, citizens and guests for joining us. We enjoyed a shared meal with traditional fiddle music performed by one of our youth, Braxton.
Truth can take generations to be acknowledged. Survivors carried their experiences long before governments were prepared to recognize them. Some spent decades asking Canada simply to acknowledge what happened to them. Their persistence reminds us that reconciliation cannot be measured only by apologies or commemorative days. It must also be measured by our willingness to listen when Survivors tell us truths that institutions have historically refused to hear.
When we wear orange on this day, it is not simply a colour of solidarity. It comes from the experience of a six year-old child. Phyllis Webstad arrived at residential school proudly wearing a new orange shirt her grandmother had bought for her. It was taken from her and never returned. The orange shirt has come to symbolize what the residential school system tried to take from children — their dignity, their identity, their families, their languages and their sense that they mattered. When we say Every Child Matters, we affirm precisely what that system denied.
