The community gathered at Saskatoon city hall to honour those who endured the residential school era.
The fourth annual reconciliation flag raising ceremony heard from Indigenous leaders as well as residential school survivors, who shared their powerful stories.
Friday’s emotional ceremony also remembered those who never made it home.
“This year’s theme is ‘Re-Igniting the fire.’ We celebrate diversity, inclusion and reconciliation as we move towards the future,” Métis Nation-Saskatchewan president Glen McCallum said.
“This is our opportunity – Indigenous, non-Indigenous people – to come together, walk together and our commitment to making change and having a better quality of life.”
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The Reconciliation Saskatoon movement has almost 100 member organizations since the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s calls to action in June 2015.
Saskatoon Tribal Council Chief Mark Arcand said it’s important to acknowledge the past and learn from it.
“For people that don’t understand – maybe they should be talking to the people, to be educated, to see what they went through,” Arcand said.
“See that it’s a lived experience – it’s not made up and those are real facts and they traumatize people.”
Arcand said he thinks Saskatchewan is leading the way in reconciliation – adding, it’s important to continue building meaningful relationships.
“The children of this city and of this province are going to make a difference in the future,” he said.
“We really have to invest in them – we get rid of all that stigma and those non-supporting relationships and really focus on things that are positive.”