Anishinaabe Grandmother Kim Wheatley is calling on Aurora residents to become more active participants in reconciliation.
Speaking in the outdoor space at the newly opened Town Square at the Town of Aurora's National Day for Truth and Reconciliation event Sept. 30, Wheatley pointed to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s “94 Calls to Action,” released in June 2015, noting there is “still a long way to go.”
“Teamwork does make the dream work,” she said. “We need you. We need you to become active participants on the road to reconciliation. We can’t just gather together and talk.”
Wheatley added while attending events like those held on Monday are good steps, residents should be “normalizing those acts of reconciliation” in their everyday lives.
“Repetition is the key to learning and hopefully it is the power tool to propel you into action, to do something, whether anybody recognizes you, sees you, speaks about you or not,” she said.
“What has happened in this country was a crime. Cultural genocide was a crime. There’s no nice way to put that. What happened to these children was a crime. And justice has not been attained. An apology is not justice.”
Wheatley led the town’s ceremony, presentation, and sacred fire to mark the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, alongside Elder Pat Floody, and Ancestral Knowledge Keeper Raiden Levesque.
During the ceremony, Floody approached members of the audience, offering tobacco smoke to them to participate in the smudging ceremony, as Aurora residents Narda and Carlos Maniarres did.
“That is part of the Canadian history and we want to be more involved in the community and what it means, reconciliation,” said Narda Maniarres.
The pair, who are originally from Colombia, said they inherited their interest in Indigenous culture from Carlos’ father, who was involved in working with native issues in Colombia.
“It’s just a need to understand. Because we were not born here, we’re from South America, we also have our own history, and we just want to understand, and to see what it is, how they celebrate, and go from there.”
Sept. 30 was first recognized as the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, a federal statutory holiday, in 2021. Orange Shirt Day was first honoured in 2013, by the founding of the non-profit Orange Shirt Society.
Mother, father, daughter trio Rhonda, John and Madison Leuchak have been coming to the town’s Indigenous events for a number of years. Rhonda, who is Metis, along with her daughter Madison, and originally from Sault Ste. Marie, said she wants her "children to understand just what happened, so that it never happens again."
“It’s a sombre day but its also a day that we recognize, and understand and learn from the past so that the next generations understand what this is all about,” she said.
Earlier in the day, town staff gathered outside Aurora Town Hall to raise the Every Child Matters flag.
