Saturday is a day of reflection in this country and a reminder that a mature nation takes stock of its past and does not attempt to hide from its wrongs.

The National Day for Truth and Reconciliation is a day of remembrance for the estimated 150,000 First Nations, Metis and Inuit children who attended residential schools in this country. It acknowledges the lifelong trauma endured by survivors and it honours the memory of those children who never came home.

The 2015 Truth and Reconciliation Commission found 3,201 confirmed student deaths, but Justice Murray Sinclair, who headed the commission, suggested the number could be much higher, perhaps 6,000. Later, he abridged his estimate upward to between 15,000 to 25,000.

To date, the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation has documented 4,117 deaths. Their work continues. Work also continues to identify burial sites in communities which housed the schools. Ottawa has approved $149 million to support the work of locating, documenting and commemorating unmarked burials, but formal requests for funding are more than twice that figure. Compensation for suffering has played out over many years, but continues with a deadline for applications by day scholars — students who went to the schools but did not stay overnight — looming at the end of this year.

We repeat these numbers because it is easy to forget. Canadians with their own pressing day-to-day concerns may tune out land acknowledgements and look past the wearing of orange shirts. Collective shame cannot turn to shrugs and today marks the culmination of an important week in which the history of residential schools was being taught in classrooms, discussed among academics and marked in ceremonies in small communities and big cities, culminating in the national commemoration on Parliament Hill. Governor General Mary Simon, the nation’s first Indigenous representative of the Crown, will honour those who perished.

While we focus today on the legacy of residential schools, it is also an opportune time to reflect on true progress on reconciliation. It is not a pretty picture and some of the inequities and distress caused by generations of oppression and trauma stubbornly remain.

According to the most recent census, 7.7 per cent of Canada’s child population is Indigenous, but almost 54 per cent of children in foster care are Indigenous. The Conference Board of Canada released research this week showing, on average, a First Nations person who grows up in care faces a lifetime income shortfall of more than $1.2 million compared to a non-Indigenous person from the general population.

When Justin Trudeau came to power in 2015, he vowed to end all boil water advisories on reserves in five years. That was laudatory and progress has been made, but the timeline proved foolhardy and eight years later 28 reserves remain without potable water. The government now aims to remedy this by the end of 2025. A National Action Plan by the government in response to the Inquiry into Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women and Girls has been criticized for a lack of meaningful action as violence against Indigenous women continues. The Native Women’s Association of Canada called the government response a “failure.”

Indigenous Canadians are disproportionately incarcerated. Indigenous inmates represent 28 per cent of the population in federal prisons while comprising 4.3 per cent of the overall population. Fully 40 per cent of women incarcerated in federal institutions are of Indigenous ancestry.

In Manitoba, where New Democrat Wab Kinew may become the nation’s first First Nations premier on Tuesday, his Progressive Conservative opponent Heather Stefanson is attempting to make an electoral virtue of the fact she refused to spend the money needed to search for the remains of murdered Indigenous women believed buried in a landfill. Closer to home, Indigenous leaders are accusing Premier Doug Ford of proceeding with mining on their lands in the northern Ring of Fire without their consent.

Today, it is proper that we remember and honour the victims of the residential schools shame, a history that is all too recent. It is also proper to remember and reflect on the many ways true reconciliation remains elusive. The economic and social barriers that continue to confront Indigenous Canadians are evidence of that. Looking back is important. Looking ahead to seek change is crucial.