Usually this day is a day when I would wear red and white. I am an immigrant, but I am a proud Canadian. I have met many people who, like me, were not born in this country but fully adopted it as ‘home’, and like me many people feel like the adoption is mutual. Canadians accepts us as Canadian, despite being born abroad.

But today I will wear an orange shirt. Today I find it challenging to show pride in a country that secretly buried its children on Residential school grounds. Today I stand with the people who did not immigrate to Canada, but who were forced off their land, and forced to send their children to schools that abused them and attempted to colonize them, and stripped away their different languages and their cultures.

This isn’t the Canada I’ve grown to know and love, but it is every bit my Canada. This tragedy is not a history to remain buried, it is a history to face, and reconcile. I will wear red and white again on Canada at some point in the future, but to heal the wounds that run so deep, and generationally hurt so many people so deeply, I choose on this day to wear orange. I choose to say that every child matters… those that died because of racist segregation at residential schools, those that are dealing with generational trauma, those that hurt knowing the truth and are awaiting reconciliation.

I am not wearing orange in defiance, I am wearing it in unity, in solidarity. I am Canadian, and as a Canadian I am not someone who can be proud of the history of buried and forgotten children that have recently been discovered. As a Canadian I will wear orange to represent the Canada I want to live in, one where we do not forget our past, and we remember that every child matters.