Orange Shirt Day founder says controversial shirts misappropriate her truth and hurt people

Phyllis Webstad, the Northern Secwepemc (Shuswap) author and activist from Stswecem'c Xgat'tem First Nation who founded Orange Shirt Day, said she was devastated to learn orange T-shirts were being sold online with slogans that she says directly attack her work.

Webstad created Orange Shirt Day 13 years ago, on September 30, to honour Indigenous children who were forced to attend residential schools. The campaign stems from her own experience: in 1976, she wore an orange shirt—a gift from her grandmother—on her first day at St. Joseph's Mission residential school in Williams Lake, B.C. School officials took the shirt and never returned it.

In late August, Rebel News announced it was selling orange T-shirts on its website for the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. The shirts carry slogans including "Still no proof," "You can't handle the truth," "Buried Truth," "Dig Deeper," and "Canada was built not stolen." Rebel News stated the shirts are about "challenging the identity politics that Canadians are increasingly pressured to accept and standing up for the whole truth in our complex Canadian history."

Webstad called the sales a direct attack on her work with the Orange Shirt Society. "It's my truth and what I know is the truth," she said, speaking from Tk̓emlúps te Secwépemc in B.C. "It seems like this truth is not being respected. It's not being understood. It's being pushed aside."

In a statement, Ezra Levant, founder and owner of Rebel News, said the shirts are "a response for people who are forced to wear orange shirts at school or at work, as part of an 'official' political narrative." Levant stated that "no Canadians should be compelled to support any political view, including Orange Shirt Day's politics."

Webstad pointed to documentation by the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation, which has so far documented more than 4,000 deaths of Indigenous children in Canada's residential school system. She referenced her own auntie, Agness Jack, who shared personal stories about living in the Kamloops Indian Residential School in a book published in 2001.