Antoine Mountain, a survivor of three NWT residential schools, will speak at a flag-raising ceremony in Ottawa on Wednesday to mark the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.
Mountain, from Fort Good Hope, attended residential schools in Aklavik, Inuvik and Fort Smith in the 1950s and 1960s.
He said he had been selected to take part in a survivors’ flag ceremony on Parliament Hill, where he hopes to address truth, reconciliation and residential school denialism.
His speech will “emphasize the word truth in truth and reconciliation,” Mountain told Cabin Radio.
“The way we survivors view it is there can be no reconciliation without the truth of our history being known,” he said.
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He is among people calling for the federal government to criminalize residential school denialism, “so people don’t feel free to step on our Indigenous people every time they feel like they’re owed some kind of a credit for being a settler.”
“It’s the responsibility of each Canadian citizen to know your history,” he said, “and know what to do with the information you have.”
Mountain was also scheduled to appear at the Tuesday launch in Ottawa of a book, Upon a Wishing Moon, that features his work alongside contributions from other residential school survivors.
Now a resident of Peterborough, Ontario, Mountain is working on a post-doctoral project about Dene burial practices. He said he is planning a related art exhibition in Yellowknife in early 2027.
