For the past seven years, Sept. 30 has been designated Orange Shirt Day, a day to honour, acknowledge and remember the children who attended residential schools. It honours those who grew into adults, the children who never made it home and the generations that have been affected by residential schools.
Last year, Quality Foods gained a lot of media attention over an Orange Shirt Day misunderstanding. The story in a nutshell: a View Royal store employee swapped out his dress shirt and tie for an orange shirt that said reconciliation across his chest.
Unfortunately, the supervisors were unaware of the day. The store supervisors called head office and staff there had also never heard of Orange Shirt Day. Without a proper uniform for the day, the employee was told to take the day off with pay.
The employee could have asked for permission prior to the shift, but he assumed everyone knew about the orange shirts. I would have made the same mistake, too.
This story gained national attention and generated many conversations and awareness about Orange Shirt Day.
Quality Foods issued two public apologies and, at the time, I thought they could have done a better job.
I called Phyllis Webstad and asked her what she thought. Webstad is the reason we have Orange Shirt Day: she wore a new orange shirt to her first day of residential school in 1973. The staff stripped her of her clothes when she arrived. Webstad never saw the shirt again.
Webstad taught me a lesson that day. She told me that Orange Shirt Day was about having conversations.
This incident did that. She accepted the apology and at that point I knew if the apology was good enough for Webstad, it had to be good enough for me.
This week I decided to call Quality Foods head office because I was really curious to hear what they were doing for Orange Shirt Day 2019. I am proud to say that all Quality Foods employees are encouraged to participate in Orange Shirt Day.
Lyall Woznesensky, Quality Foods’ vice- president of professional development, has his orange shirt ready and will be wearing it on Monday.
Woznesensky admits he had never heard of the day before, but over the past year Quality Foods and Woznesensky have made some very impressive efforts.
A week after the incident Woznesensky learned that Phyllis Webstad was speaking at K'ómoks First Nation.
“Hearing Phyllis tell her story was very emotional and it was important that the Quality Foods executives heard the story,” said Woznesensky. “We did our best to try and understand and to put ourselves in her position.”
To me this is impressive stuff. A week before her presentation Woznesensky had never heard of Orange Shirt Day and, to educate himself, he attends the founder’s talk. That is a real demonstration of someone who really wants to learn.
“It was nice to see them there in the big house listening to my story. We could have had the media there, but they were there to listen, learn and do the right thing,” said Webstad, explaining she didn’t want anything to take away from the learning.
In the past year, Quality Foods has sent staff to workshops to better understand Indigenous issues and has sponsored Indigenous initiatives and programs at local First Nations.
As an Indigenous person, I am very proud of Quality Foods and I think the strides the company has made in one short year are a real demonstration of leadership.
“Quality Foods has set reconciliation into action. If anyone out there is thinking: ‘What can we do next?’, they can see what Quality Foods has done and take similar initiatives,” Webstad said.
“Quality Foods is answering the Truth and Reconciliation calls to action with what they are doing.”
Orange Shirt Day is relatively new. We can’t fault people for not knowing. We can applaud people and companies who are working hard to better inform themselves and their staff.
I want to let every reader know Quality Foods didn’t reach out and ask me to write this. I cold-called the head office and, while I assumed orange shirts would be permitted, I was blown away with how Quality Foods has dedicated this year to gain better understanding of Indigenous issues.
