09/30/2026
National Day for Truth and Reconciliation
Honouring Truth. Upholding Relationships. Carrying the Teachings Forward.
Across the land, this day calls us to remember, listen, and acknowledge the truths carried by First Peoples, our families, our communities, and the generations who have lived with the impacts of colonial systems.
For CAAN Communities, Alliances and Networks, truth is not something we visit for one day. It lives in our stories, our families, our bodies, our lands, and in the teachings carried forward by our Knowledge Givers.
As we gathered for the CAAN Summit, we carried these truths with us. The Summit is a place of relationship, witnessing, learning, ceremony, dialogue, and collective responsibility. It brings together First Peoples, Knowledge Givers and Keepers, community members, people with lived and living experience, researchers, health leaders, allies, and partners.
Our work in HIV, Hepatitis C, STBBI, TB, mental health, harm reduction, aging, and wellness cannot be separated from the history and ongoing realities experienced by First Peoples. Health is connected to family, culture, land, language, belonging, safety, dignity, and relationship.
From an Ancestral Science perspective, reconciliation is a responsibility to restore relationships with one another, with our communities, with the land, and with the knowledge systems that have sustained our Peoples since time immemorial.
Today, CAAN honours the Survivors, the children who never returned home, the families who continue to carry their loss, and the generations who live with the impacts of colonialism.
We also honour the Knowledge Givers, Knowledge Keepers, families, communities, and Nations who continue to protect and carry our languages, ceremonies, medicines, stories, laws, and ways of knowing.
The gathering was guided by respect, reciprocity, humility, and wahkohtowin, our responsibilities to one another. We remain committed to listening to truth, witnessing one another, strengthening relationships, and carrying the work forward.
