A story for #OrangeShirtDay: One Friday morning in September 2014, @NDP MPs were asked not to return to their ridings in order to force debate on #MMIWG, with @RomeoSaganash taking the lead.
You can watch the whole thing here starting at about 12:47 https://parlvu.parl.gc.ca/Harmony/en/PowerBrowser/PowerBrowserV2/20140919/-1/13745">https://parlvu.parl.gc.ca/Harmony/e...

Context: Harper was 3 years into a majority and dismissing calls for a #MMIWG inquiry. I worked for the House Leader so I had a front-row seat to confused and angry Conservatives watching 100 NDP MPs show up to vote on a dead Friday sitting. It was exciting and a rare win.

After forcing the vote, @RomeoSaganash started to speak. Never heard the lobby quieter. Pages hushed another, attendants stopped clearing mugs, everyone just watched. This part, Jonish& #39;s story, broke that silence when several of us started crying. #OrangeShirtDay

I was 28 and had never heard a residential school survivor tell their story until that day. The Ottawa public schools I attended covered & #39;les autochtones& #39; in the same unit as & #39;les coureurs de bois& #39; and then never again. That wasn& #39;t an omission, it was colonialism. #OrangeShirtDay

Similarly, residential schools weren& #39;t an accident, they were a strategy hatched by a system built on oppression and racism. That system still uses the state to oppress and silence Indigenous people, just with new strategies, none of which are accidental either. #OrangeShirtDay

Six years have passed and I think @RomeoSaganash& #39;s speech has stuck with me because I got to see a crack in that system. A Cree residential school survivor-turned-lawyer-turned-MP forced it to shut up and listen, if only for a moment. It still gives me hope. #OrangeShirtDay