The Okanagan Nation Alliance and Sylix Nation flags flying above Vernon City Hall to mark National Day for Truth and Reconciliation (photo by Liam Verster / Vernon Matters)

By Liam Verster

'powerful ceremony'

Sea of orange at city hall for Truth and Reconciliation flag raising

Sep 30, 2022 | 5:31 PM

Several hundred people attended the raising of the Sylix and Okanagan Nation Alliance flags at Vernon City Hall to mark the second annual National Day for Truth and Reconciliation Day.

Approximately 250 to 300 people, most of whom were wearing orange shirts, attended the event on Friday (Sept. 30) that began at 12:30 p.m.

The crowd outside Vernon City Hall for the raising of the Sylix and Okanagan Nation Alliance flags to mark National Day for Truth and Reconciliation (photo by Liam Verster / Vernon Matters)

The crowd outside Vernon City Hall for the raising of the Sylix and Okanagan Nation Alliance flags to mark National Day for Truth and Reconciliation (photo by Liam Verster / Vernon Matters)

The event began with blessing from local Elders Pauline Gregoire-Archachan and Patricia Gregoire.

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Pauline Gregoire-Archachan provides a blessing outside Vernon City Hall prior to the flag raising to mark National Day for Truth and Reconciliation (photo by Liam Verster / Vernon Matters)

Patricia Gregoire, joined by her grandson Antoine, providing a blessing outside Vernon City Hall prior to the flag raising to mark National Day for Truth and Reconciliation (photo by Liam Verster / Vernon Matters)

The Vernon & District Immigrant Services Society, which organized the event, gifted Patricia with a shawl and Pauline with locally grown tobacco following their blessings.

The flags were then raised in front of the sea of orange.

Following the flag raising, numerous speakers, including Okanagan Indian Band (OKIB) councillor Rachel Marchand, SD22 trustee Gen Acton, First Baptists Pastor Randy Hamm, and Greater Vernon Museum and Archives program coordinator Amy Timleck, stepped up to the microphone outside City Hall to read the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s 94 calls to action. These individuals, and several others, all spoke on calls that directly affect their professions or industries.

“It was really powerful to have members of the community — that the actions actually have something to do with — read out their calls because most people, I don’t think, have ever read them and those are the calls that us, as a community, also need to make,” said Anetha Kashuba, Community Connections Coordinator for the Vernon and District Immigrant Services Society (VDISS), who is also Metis.

“I think it just makes it more real when it’s relevant to what they are speaking, like councillors reading their calls.”

Among those who read were Vernon Mayor Victor Cumming and Vernon-Monashee MLA Harwinder Sandhu.

Cumming read the calls to action pertaining to municipal, provincial and federal governments.

“There’s some very direct calls to action for us, and our city is taking them very seriously. We’ve ended up with a very formal, now baked-in joint working group with Okanagan Indian Band,” said Cumming.

“We sit together every single month, we look at issues of joint interest and joint project implementation and strategies.”

Sandhu, who is also a nurse, read the calls pertaining to health care.

“Coming from health care, that’s why I felt very passionate reading about it. Working [nearly] two decades in B.C. in nursing, I’ve seen racism in health care, particularly towards Indigenous people, and the biases,” Sandhu told Vernon Matters.

“We have now cultural competency as mandatory, like some calls of action are in place, but it is important that every health care professional and everybody working at any level do take that training, and obviously not only take training, learn from it. It’s not just a tick off box,” the MLA added.

After the calls were read, Randy Sam of the North Okanagan Friendship Centre played his drum for the crowd.

Randy Sam playing his drum in front of the crowd following the raising oft he flags and the reading of the 94 calls to action (photo by Liam Verster / Vernon Matters)

The event ended with dozens of people heading into the museum and archives to discuss the calls to action.

Kashuba noted that this is the first time the Okanagan and Sylix Nation flags have flown at Vernon City Hall.

“It’s marking the start of us acknowledging that this is the [unceded] land that we live on and I hope it furthers the process of truth and reconciliation,” Kashuba told Vernon Matters.

“First off, I think it’s really important we learn the truth, because it’s not up to the people who have been abused to make the first step, it’s up to the abusers, which are the white settlers.”

She added that organizing the event was important for those she works with through the VDISS.

“The way that these two things are connected is that one aspect of my job is to educate immigrants on Indigenous culture because what the government has found is that they come to this country curious, and we have a lot of behaviours that are racist towards Indigenous people,” said Kashuba.

“So when we don’t educate on the history that is connected to them, then immigrants build a racism towards Indigenous people.”

Kashuba, Cumming, and Sandhu all told Vernon Matters that the turnout for the event was great and provided important information to the general public.

“It’s powerful because it shows people want to move and people want to learn and people are uncomfortable with where we are and want to move forward. That’s impactful to me, but I can’t wait it to be a movement that goes out and extends to the members of the Okanagan Nation” said Kashuba.

“We’re putting the effort in to learn and then hopefully that brings us closer to reconciliation.”

The flags are to be lowered at dusk Friday.