We are calling on the Ontario Board of Education to assess and reform the misinformation that the education system has passed along and spread to children at the elementary level regarding the history between Canada and Indigenous communities, in particular the Indian Residential School System (IRSS).

This is a significant area of focus as the curriculum has failed to educate many Ontarians about the historical truth about colonialism, Indigenous and settler interactions, and the gruesome reality of the IRSS. The curriculum that has been taught can be explained as opening unhealed wounds as “the encounter between history and Indigenous knowledge in classrooms has not been a positive one for Indigenous students'' (McGregor, 2017). On top of this, a 2020 study in Ontario reveals that non-Indigenous students may “go through their entire educational career without learning about Indigenous Peoples and the history and legacy of residential schooling in Canada” (Wotherspoon & Milne, 2020, p. 3). How is that huge part of history just skipped over?

Moreover, the damage of the altered and ignored history is exemplified in the lack of knowledge and consideration for Indigenous communities in Canada. Canadians deserve to know the honest history of their country and the land, not the sugar-coated and edited versions that have been told in the Canadian school curriculum. The Indigenous communities experienced enormous amounts of trauma at the IRSS and Canadians need to be taught the whole truth, and acknowledge that as a part of Canada's history, as shameful as it is. Now more than ever, with the recent uncovering's of unmarked graves from the IRSS, Canadians must be taught the truth. 

We can use our voice to show how Canadians can come together and demand change for the truth to be taught to children, so that this part of Canadian history is never forgotten. Signing this petition can demonstrate power in numbers, and push the Ontario Board of Education to implement an updated curriculum that includes the truth about the IRSS and colonialism as a whole, with emphasis on Indigenous voices.

Let's Teach The Truth!!