Every September 30th across Canada, Orange Shirt Day (now National Day for Truth and Reconciliation) is observed with solemnity. Citizens wear orange, school announcements, flags, ceremonies, all to remember Canada’s residential school system. It’s portrayed as a day to heal, teach and reconcile. But when you scratch beneath the surface, something troubling appears: decades of government dependence and ritual symbolism have not ended the suffering of Indigenous peoples; instead, they may have become a vector for grift, misdirection, and a self-hating narrative that benefits activists more than the communities they claim to help.
The origin story is widely told: Phyllis Jack Webstad, a six-year-old Indigenous girl, arrives at the St. Joseph Mission Residential School wearing a new orange shirt her grandmother bought, only to have it stripped from her, never to be returned. That orange shirt became a symbol: a signifier of loss, assimilation, the shaming of identity. The symbol is powerful. However, many of the policy promises, social programs, treaties, financial transfers, and activist campaigns tied to this narrative have failed to produce meaningful outcomes. Indigenous communities still suffer high rates of poverty, addiction, substandard housing, educational deficits, health disparities. Charities, NGOs, and governments use the orange shirt repeatedly — for visibility, for fund-raising, but without accountability or measurable improvement. The result? A recurring narrative of victimhood and dependence that seems endless.
Worse, this narrative is used to silence dissent. If you question the efficacy of current reconciliation policies, or ask why measurable metrics remain so poor, you are accused of “denial,” “insensitivity,” or “racism.” If you point to failures of governance, internal corruption, or poor leadership within Indigenous administrations, you are told you are denying colonial oppression’s continuing harm. The universal assumption is that the only problem is insufficient funding or lack of heartfelt apology — never that the policies themselves, or their administration, may be part of the problem. This is pernicious because it stifles honest discussion, innovation, and real solutions. Orange Shirt Day is no longer just a remembrance day; it’s become a sacred narrative that many are afraid to critique — and in a liberal democracy that prides itself on free speech, that should set off alarm bells.
Suggested Improvements / Alternatives
- Shift the emphasis from symbolism to outcomes: Measures of educational attainment, health improvements, housing quality in Indigenous communities compared over 10, 20, 30 years.
- Hold those in authority accountable: Indigenous governments, federal & provincial governments, NGOs — what have they done concretely?
- Allow critique: Encourage the voices of Indigenous people who say reconciliation policy has failed, rather than centering only activists’ rhetoric.
- Reduce dependency: Focus on policy reform that encourages independence, local governance, entrepreneurship, merit-based support, not perpetual victimhood.
References
- Orange Shirt Day, The Canadian Encyclopedia. Details on the origin with Phyllis Webstad, residential schools system, “Every Child Matters.”
- Al Jazeera: “What is Orange Shirt Day and how is it commemorated in Canada?” — background, statistics, origin story, ceremony and observance practices. (Al Jazeera)
- Centennial College Library Guides: institutional summary of Orange Shirt Day history & schooling context. (Centennial College Library Guides)
- Peace Arch News: Orange Shirt Society founder’s concern about Orange Shirt Day being co-opted, misremembered, or replaced in official messaging. (peacearchnews.com)
- Montreal CityNews: issues with merch, designers, t-shirts, people profiting off the symbol. (CityNews Montreal)
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September 30, 2025 at 6:16 am
tildeb
I know seeking what’s true about Wedstad’s claims is like pissing into the wind and that people – especially white people and especially older women – prefer a narrative that excuses them to vilify all things Canadian and western, all things true in fact, and replace these with these kind of ‘honoured’ made up stories.
Few people care that government and education are supporting disinformation, meaning INTENTIONAL lies and deceits especially about Canada’s Indian population. Few people even know that the Wedstad story is just that: a story. Who cares that St. Joseph’s, which, to clarify, was no longer a school when she arrived there in 1973, but a student residence or hostel in which students lived while attending public schools in town in Williams Lake? Nobody seems to think twice about staff receiving children who, according to Rodney Clifton, a native who worked at Stringer Hall, that “Some of the children arrived at Stringer Hall in September wearing the same school clothing they wore when they went home in the spring, not having bathed or changed in two months. Some of these children had been standing in smudge fires, trying to escape the hordes of blood-sucking insects, and a number had arrived with infected bug bites on their scalps. A few children arrived with ear infections so severe that pus was running down their necks. At the beginning of the year, these children cried themselves to sleep. As you might expect, the first priority of the residential school staff, particularly the nursing sister, was to clean up the children, and treat their infections.“
Every child who wasn’t an orphan had to APPLY to go to these schools and residences. But who cares about that? The notion of RCMP officers ‘raiding’ Indian communities and ‘scooping’ children against the wishes of their parents is a bullshit story popularly portrayed and received by the blue haired crowd with nods of sympathy and self loathing.
Anyway, Wedstad’s story about nuns is highly unlikely considering the change in status by St Joseph’s and her devoted followers rarely if ever understand the staff were much more likely to be Indian like Gloria Manuel. Nor are Canadian’s told that Wedstad actually LIKED her public school, her primary classroom, and loved the teacher with whom she had hoped to live with. In other words, Wedstad attended a PUBLIC school and not a residential school. At all. Ever. But who cares any of that?
I could go on and on about the misinformation the Orange Shirt story represents but I cannot forgive those who would prefer to believe such a bullshit narrative and go along with the lies it intentionally represents nor the institutions that support the lies.
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September 30, 2025 at 6:25 am
tildeb
Also, please note that AI similarly ‘believes’ the bullshit narrative. Relying on AI to provide what’s true (based on extracting information from large language models FROM THE INTERNET) is foolish.
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September 30, 2025 at 6:44 am
tildeb
As Nina Green explains based on what’s true:
“Phyllis Webstad needs to level with Canadians, and tell them (1) whether it really was nuns who greeted her at the school, forced her to shower, took her orange shirt away, and cut her hair, or whether it was lay staff members, and perhaps Indigenous lay staff members, (2) that her school year with a teacher she liked in Williams Lake was a happy one, (3) that her parents had both abandoned her, and that she had no one to care for her on the reserve apart from an aging grandmother, and (4) that childhood on the reserve, as experienced by her aunt, was horrific, as opposed to her own year at St. Joseph’s, which was not horrific at all.”
As Wedstad’s aunt who also stayed at St Joseph’s for the one year Phyllis stayed there about life on Dog Creek reserve and the granny who bought the shirt:
There was lots of violence and drinking on the reserve. Many times at Granny Suzanne’s, we had to hide ourselves for our safety, usually in the sweat house or the haystack by the creek. My two uncles lived with us. One of them abused me sexually, and the other abused me mentally and physically. He would beat me and my brother with sticks and anything he could get his hands on. He even bullwhipped us once.
This is the idyllic life Phyllis came from and entered the ‘horrific’ residence for one year she earlier told media was “one of her fondest memories”. But that doesn’t sell T Shirts. Nor does it fit the bullshit narrative about residential schools we’ve come to believe nor provide the fables necessary to condemn them, condemn Canada, condemn western civilization. Just remember that the Prime Minister’s father, Robert Carney Sr. spent most of his career as a principal of some of these schools and a staunch public defender of them. Golly gee whiz, what a denier because he had nothing but first hand experience! The bullshit narrative cannot stand against what’s true in fact so of course we also have to go along with the lie that to disagree based on what’s true makes one morally wrong. That’s why the internet is full of bullshit because bullshit is what has been reproduced by ‘allied’ writers not wishing to be considered depraved and deplorable about the residential school system. Wedstad herself is not immune to its allure and reputational stature gained from going along with its lies. But should we?
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