Why National Reconciliation Day? Supporting Indigenous Resistance in Canada

• Indigenous Erasure: Past and Present
• Canadian Allyship: How to Stay Engaged
• Indigenous Resistance: Present and Future
• Indigenous Voices to Check Out
• Frequently Asked Questions

Indigenous Erasure: Past and Present

Racism is not always about obvious exclusion or unfair treatment. Sometimes it means invisibility—failing to see people at all. In Canada, erasure of Indigenous peoples demands that we ignore their histories, cultures, and ongoing presence. Truth and reconciliation demand that we refuse to forget.

Colonial powers erased Indigenous place by remapping territories, renaming lands, and declaring them “unoccupied” upon arrival. By rewriting geography, colonial systems helped manufacture a narrative of terra nullius—a land without peoples.

Over generations, Indigenous cultures were suppressed by laws, policies, and informal norms. Suppression persists today: mainstream media too often fails to represent Indigenous people in full humanity. Educational curricula may gloss over or minimize the impacts of residential schools and the Sixties Scoop, in which children were removed from communities and placed in non-Indigenous homes with little link to their roots.

The aftershocks of these interventions are deeply felt: high rates of foster care involvement, incarceration, and community trauma. Meanwhile, the legal system continues to avoid full recognition of Indigenous self-determination, making it harder for communities to restore authority, dignity, and healing.

Yet erasure has never been total. Indigenous communities resist, even against overwhelming odds.

Truth and Reconciliation invites us to imagine a future where Indigenous individuals and nations are respected, seen, and able to thrive—not as relics, but as living, evolving presences. That responsibility lies with each of us.

Canadian Allyship: How to Stay Engaged

Education is the starting point. Many Canadians remain distant from Indigenous realities because our culture rarely foregrounds them. And when discourse names settlers or implicates us in systems of unjust power, defensiveness or shame can shut us down.

To learn deeply, we must name colonial policies still shaping life today: genocide, residential schools, the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls, and Two Spirit people, denial of safe water access, and ongoing land dispossession. These are not relics of history—they are active forces.

Acknowledging such truths can stir discomfort or guilt. That is expected. But discomfort does not mean we step aside, but rather it means we stay committed. Vulnerability is not weakness, but a doorway to deeper awareness and accountability.

Allyship is not a badge to collect. It is ongoing work. It means listening carefully, showing up for Indigenous-led initiatives, accepting critique, and shifting our own habits and systems.

Remind yourself that it’s okay to feel vulnerable. Take time to process and unpack big feelings and engage in practices that allow you to care for yourself so you feel empowered to continue to care for others.

Indigenous Resistance: Present and Future

When dominant narratives silence Indigenous resistance, they erase the full story. But resistance lives. It seeks to reclaim land, language, and culture suppressed by colonial systems.

The Land Back movement is one expression. It frames the return of Crown lands to Indigenous control as one way to honour treaties and Indigenous sovereignty. The movement urges a reimagining of power beyond colonial structures.

Resistance also emerges in mapwork. The Indigenous Mapping Collective reclaims mapping tools to restore Indigenous spatial knowledge and confront environmental risk (for instance, to guard against flooding in British Columbia’s Fraser Valley).

Defenders of land protect ecosystems and assert that the land is not for sale. For example, the 1492 Land Back Lane site on Six Nations territory asserts a refusal to relinquish stolen land. Projects like the Settler Colonial City Project reinterpret settler cities through Indigenous histories of Turtle Island.

Resistance is also healing. Cultural revival shows up in language reclamation, dance, music, storytelling, ceremony, and art. Joy and creation are not escapes—they are acts of defense and resurgence.

New economic and governance models are also emerging. In British Columbia, the Haisla First Nation recently became majority owners in a liquefied natural gas project—claiming agency in resource development in an industry often dominated by non-Indigenous actors.

At the federal level, Canada’s fourth annual progress report reviews how the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act is being implemented—tracking the 181 measures set out in the Action Plan. Yet Indigenous organizations stress that progress must be meaningful and grounded, not symbolic. If you want to learn more about Indigenous resistance but aren’t sure where to start, here are some resources to guide your research:

1. Reports from the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation
2. What is Land Back?
3. The Settler Colonial City Project
4. The Indigenous Mapping Collective
5. How the Canadian Justice System Works Against Indigenous Peoples
6. How Singing, Drumming and Dancing Help Bolster Resistance Movements

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Indigenous Voices to Check Out

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Frequently Asked Questions about the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation