NWAC President says reconciliation has been a long time in coming and now is the time for action

OTTAWA – A statement from Carol McBride, President of the Native Women’s Association (NWAC), to mark the second annual National Day for Truth and Reconciliation:

“It has been nearly 500 years since Europeans arrived on the shores of Turtle Island, declared these lands to be uninhabited, and started the process of colonization. For nearly 500 years, settlers have attempted to subjugate and assimilate the First Peoples of these lands.

Now, after acknowledging the harms that have been done to us, and to our children, over a century and a half of residential schools, there are calls for reconciliation. After finding more than a thousand tiny bodies in unmarked graves, Canadians are beginning to understand the depth of our grief and anguish. The National Day for Truth and Reconciliation has been declared.

This awakening to the unjust treatment of the First Nations, Métis, and Inuit has been hundreds of years in coming. We want this thing called reconciliation. It will not be achieved with words, but with action. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission has lit the path with its 94 Calls to Action. Let us not wait another week, another day, another minute, to walk that path of reconciliation together.”