This bill is advocating for the creation of this national holiday. Creating a national statutory holiday for indigenous people will assist in promoting reconciliation. In my role as regional chief, I have seen first-hand the power of this day when we bring people together. We had the Grand-Pré peace and friendship gathering last year, where we brought together the Acadian community as one form of reconciliation—how would we interact, how can we know each other?
As Georgina talked about, not a lot of people come on the reserve to see it. They'd love the experience of our culture and our identity, but how do you get them exposed to it?
We brought it into a national park instead, and we had over 30,000 people attend. It was an amazing opportunity for us to have another group of society—allies—become more understanding of our stories. If we stay out of sight and out of mind, we will never get more dialogue going, and that's what needs to happen for a proper reconciliation in this country. We need to share education with each other.
Media coverage is largely focused on negative circumstances. First nations are facing suicide epidemics, a lack of affordable housing, higher food prices and a number of other critical issues. A study earlier this year by the Angus Reid Institute found 61% of Canadians are optimistic about the future of the relationship between indigenous people and Canadians. We just have to find spaces and spots and times in our busy lives to make sure we have time for this.
We said our commitments of 150 when we celebrated Canada 150 were only the start of the next Canada 150. It means deeper deposits of your commitment. Making days like this happen and not be an inconvenience is crucial. The inconvenience was us being stripped of our land, our culture and our identity. We need leadership in order for us to develop mutual respect and trust with each other. Leadership has to happen to make that firm investment in trust. It's really important that we follow through in the best way we can to cover all the 94 calls to action.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, in the UN declaration, calls for all of these to have good input and feedback and work together to make sure that we have celebrations, we have information coming together, and we have investments of time like this so that we can eliminate the lack of education and the racism that's out there. I think it's important that we all take a collective approach to make this happen.
Several provinces and territories have already acknowledged the importance of having a day to celebrate indigenous peoples. In 2017, the Yukon government created legislation that led to June 21 becoming a statutory holiday. In the Northwest Territories, this day has been celebrated as a statutory territorial holiday for 18 years. This is not a new issue. The Assembly of First Nations has been calling for this legislation since 1982.
The Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples recommended a special day, and the Chiefs-in-Assembly have several resolutions speaking specifically to this matter. Among them is call to action number 80, which calls for the very measures outlined in this proposed bill. I am aware of Canada's recent commitment to declare a federal statutory holiday to mark the legacy of the residential school system. We will welcome an announcement and a date to honour the history of this period, as called for in the TRC calls to action.
I also want to share one other story. I had a phone call from two of my community members from Millbrook. I cover Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, with 13 communities in Nova Scotia. It was Linda Maloney and Matilda Bernard, a sister of Nora Bernard, who started a class action suit across the country. I said wherever I have an opportunity to share your point, I will do that, so this is why I'm breaking away from my notes. It's to make sure I listen to her notes instead.
She said, “Morley, if you can tell whoever is out there about the truth and reconciliation day, we're really happy, but it shouldn't happen on June 21, and it shouldn't happen on Orange Shirt Day.”
She said, “I'm not here to pick the date, but I'm here to tell you why. September is the time we all went away, when we had to leave our families, so September was not a good time for us. June was a happy time, when we were all going home and going to see our families. Rather than getting into a debate about June 21 or Orange Shirt Day, it's important that this fact be presented to whomever you can present it to ”
I just kept my word by doing that today.
I want to thank you guys too. It's important, again, that we can look at truth and reconciliation. Do we need another statutory holiday, and all that? I think we do. If you see a statue of Cornwallis in Halifax become a national issue and a lightning rod, it shows how much more investment we have to do and not be scared. Let the poison come out. Let's drown it out with a young generation of real leaders who are not going to be brainwashed with the old lack of education we got to achieve about indigenous people and the relationship.
We need to just be very proud and loud on how we can actually have reconciliation in the next 150 years, and not just in pieces of our speeches when Canada 150 was here.
That's all I have for that. Thanks so much.