This past Thursday was the Inaugural National Day of Truth of Reconciliation.
I started writing these columns back in 2017, and each year, I make sure to honour Orange Shirt Day and raise awareness through my columns.
For my 2017 Orange Shirt Day column, I interviewed Phyllis Webstad, who told me that in 2013, she’d been asked to speak to the media about her experiences in residential school.
She was working with a group of survivors for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and her peers had appointed her to be their spokesperson.
“I was so nervous, and then I thought I would just talk about my first day of school,” Webstad said in the 2017 interview.
When she met with reporters, Webstad told them about how her grandmother had bought her a shiny orange shirt for her first day at St. Joseph’s Indian Residential School when she was six years old. When she arrived at the school, she was stripped, and her clothing was taken away.
She never saw that shirt again.
It was from that conversation with reporters that the symbol of the orange shirt was born to acknowledge the children who attended residential school, including the survivors and the children who never made it home.
Each year, Orange Shirt Day has been gaining more and more traction — as with anything new, it takes time to catch on.
On Sept. 30, 2018, a Quality Foods employee in View Royal wore an orange shirt to work. The employer was not familiar with the symbol, and the orange shirt did not meet the dress code for his position, which was a white shirt and tie. The employee did not have a change of clothes, so he left work for the day.
The story captured a lot of media attention, including a column written by me. I spoke with the employee and then I called Webstad to ask her perspective.
Webstad responded: “Orange Shirt Day is just starting out and not everyone knows about it yet and that’s OK. Orange Shirt Day is about creating conversations and bringing awareness to residential schools and what we went through. Quality Foods has tried to make it right, and their response was positive.”
The following year, I called Quality Foods head office because I was curious to hear what they were doing for Orange Shirt Day.
Lyall Woznesensky, Quality Foods’ vice-president of professional development, told me in 2019 that he had his orange shirt ready.
Woznesensky admitted he had never heard of Orange Shirt Day before the incident in the store, but he and Quality Foods had made some very impressive efforts to educate themselves and support Indigenous communities.
A week after the incident, Woznesensky learned 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.”
The Quality Food story is one of my favourite examples of people using an unfortunate experience as a starting place for growth. Quality Foods never reached out for media coverage, and it did the work because it was important.
In these times of rapid-fire cancel culture, we need to acknowledge when people and organizations take the time to reflect and do better. When we applaud personal growth, it will create more space for others to follow.
If you see someone who is trying or willing to learn, be gentle with them.
