National Indigenous Peoples Day
June 21, 2024
Today is National Indigenous Peoples Day in Canada, and the FSA celebrates the resistance, courage, and history of Indigenous Peoples on the lands that became BC and Canada. The FSA has provided donations to the Urban Native Youth Association and Spirit of the Children Society to celebrate and support Indigenous youth and families.
Our members have been working hard at Reconciliation efforts through the past year. In 2023, FSA members established the Indigenous Affinity Circle (IAC), for Indigenous members and allies, which recently approved a Terms of Reference. The IAC seeks to influence the direction of Reconciliation and Indigenization at BCIT by utilizing the group’s democratic potential. Please reach out if you’re interested in joining the IAC.
Our most recent Collective Agreement included several gains for Indigenous members, which we’re hoping to build upon in the 2025 round.
Separately, our members in the Library have been undertaken the onerous but necessary task of decolonizing their collection. Read more about that process here.
Much work remains to be done at BCIT and within the FSA, but our Union is proud support decolonization efforts while reckoning also with the past and its ugly truths of colonialism.