Phyllis Webstad was six, and the shirt her grandmother bought her was orange; it was taken from her on her first day at the mission school in 1973, and she never got it back. The other text behind the day is the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's report, six volumes drawn from thousands of survivors giving statements about what the residential schools did to them and to their families. Canada first kept the day as a statutory one in 2021, following the Commission's eightieth call to action.
The bill that made the thirtieth a federal statutory day passed in June 2021 — an earlier attempt had died when Parliament dissolved, so it took two goes and some years of drafting to settle the wording. It covers federally regulated workplaces; the provinces each decided separately.
Most of the schools were run under church administration — Catholic orders the largest share, with Anglican, Presbyterian and Methodist (later United Church) houses as well. The apologies came separately and slowly: the United Church in 1986, the Anglican Church in 1993, the Presbyterians in 1994, and Rome in 2022, when Pope Francis said it in person on Canadian ground.