OTTAWA — Sept. 30 might become a new statutory holiday commemorating victims of residential schools.
The House of Commons heritage committee approved a measure Tuesday to make the last day of September a National Truth and Reconciliation Day.
That date is already used as an informal occasion to commemorate the experiences of residential-school students, called Orange Shirt Day.
It's called that in memory of a piece of a clothing one First Nations girl in British Columbia had taken away from her on her first day at a residential school in 1973.
The heritage committee put the new federal holiday into Bill C-369, which also creates a National Indigenous Peoples' Day on June 21 — one day would be for commemoration, the other for celebration.
The bill has yet to go to the Commons for a final vote.
