Why do people wear orange on National Day for Truth and Reconciliation?
National Day for Truth and Reconciliation is a day to honour residential school survivors, those who never returned home, their families and their communities.
The day is also sometimes referred to as Orange Shirt Day. Shirts worn typically have the slogan “every child matters.”
Rhett Sangster, Director, Reconciliation and Community Partnerships with Office of the Treaty Commissioner, said the origin of the shirt comes from a residential school survivor named Phyllis Webstad.
“She told a story about when she was a six-year-old girl, her grandmother had bought her a brand new orange shirt,” he said. “When she got to the school, it was taken away.”