When the Truth and Reconciliation Commission released their 94 Calls to Action in 2015, they included a slim volume that was quickly put together on missing children and unmarked graves.

The commissioners said over the course of their seven year commission, they reported 3,200 children died in the 140 Indian Residential Schools in Canada from the mid 1800s to 1996. They also said this was just a fraction of the actual number. And of those, one-third of the 3,200 children had no names. And, another 25 or so percent had no gender - they didn’t know if they were boys or girls. Let that sink in. How little did the powers that be who ran the schools, thought of our children. They didn’t take down their names or if they were boys or girls.

There are now, in 2026, 4,000 names of children who died in residential school, listed on the red memorial banner that the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation keeps. The banner unfurls at events like the Pope Francis apology tour and in Ottawa on Sept. 30, or, what we call, Orange Shirt Day.

One of the proudest moments in my life was when I was able to correct my great Uncle Sam’s name and gender on the red banner. Uncle Samuel Skelliter was listed as “Sara” in the official documents kept at the former Shingwauk Indian Residential School in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont. He died when he was 8 years old. His older brother, my great Uncle Thomas Skelliter, died afterwards. Both boys are buried in unmarked graves at Shingwauk. Those facts are undeniable. They are there, at the school, with their former classmates, some teachers.

The wave of anti-Indigenous sentiment - which is what denialism of Indian Residential Schools - is shameful. People marching in white-face, in Kamloops, B.C., demanding to see the bones of dead children, hateful.

It did not have to be this way. Indian Residential Schools in Canada were funded by the federal government and administered by the Christian Churches. There were also provincial run and privately run schools.

Yet where are these governments now? As part of their reparations to our relations, our aunties, our uncles and grandparents, to all our ancestors, they need to stand up and speak out against denialism. It is their duty as participants of past harms.

Canadian Parliament overwhelmingly agreed to a motion, five years ago, that what happened here was a hate crime. A genocide. But legislation in that same Parliament making IRS denialism a hate crime, fell on dead ears. It went nowhere, this after a valiant effort by MP Leah Gazan, granddaughter to Holocaust victims and those who went to IRS, to bring it forward.

Prime Minister Mark Carney came out with a statement admonishing what happened in Kamloops over the weekend. This was a strong first step and we need more of his moral outrage. As he leads Canada against the U.S. threat, acknowledging Survivors of the so-called schools and speaking out against denialism is what our Prime Minister should be firmly be doing. Set the example. Leave no room for ambiguity. Do not be silent. This is what we have seen some major news coverage that questions the claims Tk’emlups made regarding the potential graves of students. Those reports, no matter how subtle, sew the seeds of doubt.

Canada is better than that. There are more of us that wear Orange shirts on Sept. 30, than not. There are more schools flying orange flags and inviting Survivors inside their doors, than not.

Sept. 30 is a day to reflect, a day to listen and to stand up against those who deny the voice of Survivors. I am part of a Canada that does that.

I hope you are too.