Mr. Speaker, today is Orange Shirt Day, a day to honour residential school warriors who were kidnapped from their communities and shipped off to residential schools. Some made it home and some perished in the schools, a legacy of cultural and social disruption that left many survivors struggling to regain identity and place for themselves and their loved ones, a violent violation of human rights with impacts that continue to reverberate in our communities and families today.
There is no reconciliation in the absence of justice, which includes heeding and legislating all the calls to action by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada.
This attack against our communities was perpetrated for no other reason than because of who we were in all our beauty and grace, living out who we were as indigenous peoples; violence perpetrated against our little children whose resilient spirits experienced unimaginable violence. They are loved and valued. I, along with our caucus and with thousands and thousands of others, honour their strength, resiliency and hearts today.
I have heard countless stories about the heartache parents felt when our communities fell silent each September, when our children were robbed away. Once again there was anguish. There was no more laughter or play. Today I honour the parents of those who had their kids wrongfully taken away. There is deafening silence.
There are warriors who are kind, resilient, loving and patient, like my partner Romeo Saganash. As we figure out our way forward, learning how to love and trust in a relationship, it is messy. Colonization has made relationships messy, but we move forward with understanding, compassion, love and fun, including travelling across the country, fighting for Bill C-262, to realize the full adoption and implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
I was touched by a story Romeo told me almost five years ago about how, for over 20 years, he would frequent the local flower shop every Saturday in Quebec City to buy flowers, up until the 2011 election when he informed the flower shop owner that he was moving and would not be by for flowers. She said that it was too bad, that “I am sure she will miss getting flowers.” He told her that the flowers were for him, that nobody had ever bought him flowers. The store owner was so touched that she proceeded to cry and so did I upon hearing that story. I told him that I would always buy him flowers, and I have kept that promise. Flowers give him joy.
I also accompanied this gesture with a poem I published to share the very deep love I have for him:
He said he never received flowers
A blossomed heart
An orchid to be cherished
He said he never received flowers
A spirit they tried to break
In residential school
Behind walls
That grew weeds of genocide
There were no flowers
They had no flowers
For an artist's spirit
Whose creativity was born out of kindness
He said he never received flowers
A spirit so worthy to be embraced
By kindness and love
So here is your flower
Let the smells fill your room
With the beauty of your sacred heart.
I extend my love to my partner, my relatives, my friends, all the residential school warriors who I have not had the honour to know and the attendees of residential schools who never made it home from these schools. Here is their flower. Let the smells fill the room with the beauty of their sacred heart.