Today, September 30, is Orange Shirt Day, a day for recognizing and remembering the generations of Indigenous children who grew up in Canada's now-abolished residential school system.

James Bird, a Daniels Faculty Master of Architecture student, is a residential school survivor. In 2017, he partnered with Heidi Bohaker and Laurie Bertram, a pair of University of Toronto history professors, to create "Canada by Treaty," a travelling exhibition that explains Canada's history of treaty-making with Indigenous peoples.

Canada by Treaty, which originally took the form of a series of printed display boards, has been exhibited throughout the three University of Toronto campuses and in other prominent Toronto locations. Now, with the pandemic making it impossible for physical exhibitions to happen, the Daniels Faculty has helped transform Canada by Treaty's display panels into a website.

The exhibition explains some of the ways Canada has historically failed to live up to the spirit of its treaty obligations — particularly through its residential school policy.

"On the one hand, the government was signing treaties, but at the same time it was apprehending children and putting them into residential schools," James says. "We have this history of two stories being told: one of agreeing to land settlements, and the other of taking away Indigenous language and culture. It's a story of giving with one hand and taking with the other."

Even if you're working or going to school from home today, you can still observe Orange Shirt Day by showing your solidarity with Indigenous peoples.

Visit the University of Toronto's Indigenous Gateway to join the university's virtual Orange Shirt Day event — and scroll through the Canada by Treaty exhibition for a brief, illustrated history of the legal maneuverings that have shaped the relationships between Canada's Indigenous peoples and its settler societies.

Visit the Canada by Treaty exhibition now