Indigenous Veterans Day founder Randi Gage was in attendance at Grande Prairie’s sixth annual Indigenous Veterans Day ceremony at the Veterans Memorial Gardens and Interpretive Centre. Numerous Indigenous, municipal, and provincial leaders were also in attendance to observe the ceremony.
Gage made the trip from her home in Manitoba to speak on the status of the event across the country and share stories of her times as a veterans advocate.
After starting the day in 1994 in Winnipeg, Gage has travelled across Canada to advocate for Indigenous veterans, and she says her trip to Grande Prairie is meaningful as it shows her advocacy spreading outside of Manitoba.
“This was beautiful, this is probably, other than the very first one, this one was fantastic,” she says.
According to Gage, she started the day as a result of racial prejudice and tense Canadian Armed Forces-Indigenous veterans relations following World War II.
“You gave up your treaty rights, you never got your treaty back when you came back from the war; what happened was you came back from the war and you went back to being a ‘damn Indian’.”
Gage says while awareness surrounding Indigenous veteran mistreatment is improving, there is still a long journey ahead, as the day is still only officially recognized in Manitoba, and concerns surrounding the day’s proximity to the Remembrance Day holiday.
“I would like to see the mainstream population understand that this day is not taking anything away from Remembrance Day. It’s giving us as Indigenous, Aboriginal, Native veterans the chance to go and be with our comrades.”
“What you’re remembering on that day [Remembrance Day] is so hurtful, and this day, they wanted it so they could keep their history in their community.”
During the ceremony, two new memorial statues commissioned by local artist Grant Berg were blessed and dedicated by an Indigenous elder, alongside Gage.