National Day for Truth and Reconciliation

Today, on National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, we're taking part in One Day's Pay and we're sharing the invitation to give one day's pay (or what you can afford) to Indigenous-led organizations.

As newcomers to this land, we feel a responsibility that goes beyond reflection: to educate ourselves about whose land we live on, to take concrete action to help preserve it, and to stand alongside its original caretakers. This is our small act of reciprocity. 

This year, donations go directly to three Indigenous-led partners:
*Sacred Earth* (national) — advancing a Just Transition centered on Indigenous rights, cultural resilience, healing from colonization, and ecological balance.

*Stqeeye' Learning Society* (traditional territory of the Quw'utsun Peoples, Saltspring Island) — reconnecting Elders and youth through land-based learning, and supporting Indigenous food sovereignty and traditional food systems.

*Clan Mothers Healing Village & Knowledge Centre* (Treaty 1 Territory) — providing long-term, land-based healing programs for Indigenous women and two-spirit relatives affected by intergenerational trauma.

All funds go straight to these organizations.
Generous, unrestricted giving is welcomed, including without a tax receipt, as many Indigenous-led projects choose not to hold charitable status.

Show up today 

Every September 30, Canada observes the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, a day to honour First Nations, Inuit and Métis Survivors of residential schools, their families, and their communities. It became a federal statutory holiday in June 2021, directly responding to Call to Action #80 of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), which asked the government to create a public day of commemoration so that the history and legacy of residential schools remains part of national memory. The date was chosen because it marks the end of the school year — the time when Indigenous children were historically taken from their families and sent away to residential schools.

Between 1867 and 1996, roughly 140 federally supported residential schools operated across Canada, run by Christian churches under a federal policy whose aim was assimilation; it isolated Indigenous children from their families, languages, cultures, and religions, and absorbing them into Euro-Canadian society. Children were stripped of their names, punished for speaking their languages, and subjected to neglect and abuse on a vast scale. The TRC, which heard testimony from survivors between 2008 and 2015, concluded that this deliberate attempt to destroy Indigenous cultures constituted *cultural genocide*. Its final report set out 94 Calls to Action addressing the ongoing harms; including intergenerational trauma, family breakdown, and the discovery of thousands of unmarked graves at former school sites, which brought the history home to many Canadians who had not known about it.