Ontario marks Truth and Reconciliation day, Toronto opens spirit garden [Video]

A monument to honour residential school survivors was unveiled in Toronto’s Nathan Phillips Square on Monday, one of dozens of events in Ontario marking the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.

The new spirit garden in front of Toronto City Hall comes in response to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s call for governments to establish publicly accessible, highly visible monuments honouring survivors and thousands of children who died in residential schools.

The garden’s centrepiece is a large turtle sculpture positioned in a reflecting pool that has the names of the 18 residential schools that once operated in Ontario inscribed on its north wall.

Jordan Carrier brought her children and grandchildren to the square on Monday to take part in the ceremony and for them to “learn more about their own identity as First Nations people.”

“For me, today is not so much a celebration, but an honouring of the past,” she said.

Carrier …