Melville City Council has voted in favour of recognizing September 30th as the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.
Mayor Walter Streelasky says prior to the decision being made, he spoke with Cowessess First Nation Chief Cadmus Delorme on August 25 – during Kihew Fabco’s grand opening – about Melville possibly celebrating Treaty Days, but it didn’t work out due to scheduling issues.
“We looked at September 12 as a possible day for Treaty Days in the City of Melville. Again, his schedule and our schedule it seemed that we just were not in position to have this event occur,” Streelasky said. “We had a committee in place but again, the timeline was challenged.”
The committee to organize Treaty Days consisted of Mayor Streelasky, Councilors Lori Kraft, Andrew Rondeau, and Todd Brooks. Streelasky says this committee is still in place.
The Mayor then said they switched their focus to September 30th for National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.
“And I was very pleased with Council approved that we recognize this day we’ve given our staff a holiday in that regard…but the important thing is that we recognized the Indigenous People.”
The federal government created the statutory holiday, for federally regulated employees, on June 3rd of this year to recognize and commemorate the legacy of residential schools.
The idea of having a national holiday like this was one of the 94 recommendations in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s final report.
Streelasky says reaching out and developing relationships with neighbouring First Nations is the main reason for these efforts.
“A part of our strategic plan, long overdue, but we are certainly going to move in this direction.”
