Aboriginal Day more important than ever, says advocate

National Aboriginal Day celebrations kicked off across the country on Sunday. In St. John's, the Native Friendship Centre hosted a public feast and organized drumming and dance performances.

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Natasha McDonald is the centre's executive director. She says National Aboriginal Day, which got its official start in 1996, is all about celebrating the incredible accomplishments of aboriginal people in Canada.

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"[It's] about them participating in cultural ceremonies and their heritage, and promoting healing about things that have gone down in history during residential schools and truth and reconciliation. It's a time for people to come together and celebrate and feast and learn more about their culture."

McDonald said this year is especially significant, given the recent recommendations made by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC).

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The TRC's report contained 6,740 statements from witnesses and recorded 1,355 hours of testimony over a six year period. The TRC then made more than 90 recommendations for change to Canadian policies and programs.

The final report concluded that Canada is guilty of committing cultural genocide against aboriginal communities.

"As a counsellor, I've counselled residential school survivors for decades and heard many of these stories that are very horrific. So I think that the time of telling the stories now hopefully is over, and the time to actually begin to heal and to begin to promote that next stage of reconciliation."

While residential school students from the province have never been compensated by the federal government, McDonald hopes a class-action lawsuit will change that.

Following Sunday's event, McDonald hopes non-aboriginals will have a better knowledge of the community, and the work being done at the Native Friendship Centre. Likewise, she said those with aboriginal roots still have much to learn. 

"I hope that the aboriginal people that are here will take away just a pride in their rich culture and maybe some new teachings. There's a lot of elders around, there's a lot of people to learn from — I had never danced that snake dance [before today] so that was really exciting," she said. 

"Some people have never seen the throat singing that we saw a few minutes ago, so it's really exciting for aboriginal people."