Honouring Truth and Reconciliation Day

Author: Laurie Michael, RD, MPH | PCDA President and Board Chair

Posted: September 30, 2023

Truth and Reconciliation Day and Orange Shirt Day will be observed this year on September 30th. This day honours Indigenous children who were forced to leave their families to attend residential schools and the intergenerational trauma that persists to this day.

As President of the PCDA, a nutrition professional, an active member in my community, and a settler-Canadian; Truth and Reconciliation highlights the important message that settler colonialism has created, shaped, and perpetuated current dysfunctional, unjust, and inequitable systems and how we live, learn, play, interact, and work in our communities. I will be spending the day (and beyond); listening, learning, and understanding the harms that nutrition and malnutrition experiments had, and continue to have on Indigenous peoples.

The PCDA encourages all RDs and RD2Bs to learn more about the legacy of residential schools, the role of dietetics in residential schools, how this has shaped the profession, and what we can do to acknowledge and learn from these truths.

Laurie Michael, RD, MPH

President, Primary Care Dietitian Association

president@primarycaredietitianassociation.org

Below is a list of links and resources shared from the PCDA's Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Committee (DEIC).

A Special thank you goes out to two of our DEIC Committee members, Marley Fisher and Abby Richter, for curating the content.

Webinars

• Nutrition Connections – Debwewin: Exploring Stories of Dietitians Working in Indigenous Communities

• Nutrition Connections – Impacts of Systemic Racism on Indigenous Peoples’ Experience of Healthcare and Nutrition

• Canadian Nutrition Society – Special Webinar: Out of the Darkness and into the Light

Truth & Reconciliation

• https://nctr.ca/

• https://www.icscollaborative.com/

• WELCOME (orangeshirtday.org)

• Indigenous Canada | Coursera

Nutrition-Specific

• A spotlight on Indigenous nutrition | The Social - YouTube

• https://foodsecurecanada.org/residential-schools-and-using-food-weapon

• Ancestral Food-Ways | WELLFORCULTURE

• http://nada.ca/

• https://idhc.life/

• http://iffculture.ca/

Podcasts

• https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-105-unreserved

• https://www.cbc.ca/listen/cbc-podcasts/906-telling-our-twisted-histories

Social Media

• @marley.indigi_rd (Marley Fisher, RD)

• @indigenousnutritionist (Sharon Swampy, RD)

• https://www.tiktok.com/@shinanova?

• The Arctic Kitchen: Recipes of the North | Facebook

Resources

• Book: ’Recovering Our Ancestors Gardens’ by Devon Mihasuah

• Book: ’The Science of the Sacred: Bridging Global Indigenous Medicine Systems and Modern Scientific Principles’ by Nicole Redvers

• Book: ‘A knock on the Door: the essential History of Residential schools from the Truth and Reconciliation commission of Canada’

• Book: 'Inventing the Thrifty Gene' by Dr. Travis Hay

• National Collaborating Centre for Determinants of Health – Let’s Talk Whiteness and Health Equity

• Providing culturally responsive dietetic services: A self-assessment tool for clinicians

• How to choose culturally appropriate education resources: A guide for dietitians and nutritionists

• NIDA – Traditional Food Guide: Gifts from our Relations