In honour of the country I love and the peoples who were here before us, today is a day to reflect and listen. Reconciliation means clean drinking water, supporting Residential Schools survivors and for those in power to fight for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, to take actions on inequality and lower income levels, higher rates of unemployment, higher death rate among children and youth. We can do better. We must do better. It does not take much for any of us to learn about the horrors that Indigenous people had to live through in the history of our country. In recent years, Canada “discovered” that thousands of indigenous children who were forced to go to Residential Schools died alone, were ripped away from their families, and were buried in mass graves. This “discovery” is and was well known in the indigenous communities and has been told to countless people. This is not only in our past, the effects of this are still felt by those whose parents were in the residential schools, whose grandparents were, by whole communities who lost loved ones and will never fully recover. Their truth is there, it is begging to be told, we just need to listen as we should have been listening. We cannot go back and undo what has been done. But we can hear the voices crying out now and answer their call. Today, I continue to express our love and gratitude for the country that saved our family's lives after surviving the war in Syria. We can take time to learn more about history, we can wear an orange shirt and we can and will acknowledge the travesties of the past and present. We will listen and we will grow as a country. We are Canadians and we are strong enough to accept our past and change our future. Every Canadian pays a price for our shared history. Much peace and love from all of us. 🧡