(xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil Waututh)/Vancouver, B.C. – September 30, 2022) Capacity marks National Day for Truth and Reconciliation and Orange Shirt Day, recognizing that today is a time of healing, commemoration, and courage for Survivors of residential schools and their families. We also acknowledge the strength and leadership of Indigenous communities across the country who are still recovering, identifying, and honoring the children lost to Canadian institutions of genocide and assimilation.
Capacity reaffirms our shared responsibility – as uninvited guests who live, work, and travel on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded lands of Indigenous people across Turtle Island – to address the ongoing legacy of Indian Residential Schools and Canada’s history of oppression and anti-Indigenous racism. As a research unit focused on addressing the discrimination and inequities in our health care and social systems, Capacity recognizes that many of these systems are complicit in harming, controlling, and colonizing Indigenous lives. The historical and ongoing violence inflicted by Canada’s medical and social service establishments upon Indigenous people, including the experiments, abuses, and assaults experienced by children at hospitals and residential schools, have had enduring, intergenerational impacts that continue to influence Capacity’s work in the community today.
Importantly, Capacity understands that meaningful and intentional to advance reconciliation does not begin and end with a commemorative day. Reconciliation is an ongoing and meaningful process of self-reflection, learning, dialogue, and action that requires actively witnessing and supporting the healing journeys of Survivors and their families. We must continue to learn from their experiences and follow the guidance of Indigenous people who are leading the work to obtain justice and accountability for the wrongs of the past and the present.