Every September 30, the country marks the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. It shares the date with Orange Shirt Day, which honours the survivors, their families and those who never made it home from residential schools
This day holds two things at once. It’s remembering what was lost, and it’s also about what comes after. A day like Remembrance Day looks back and stops there. This one asks something more of us going forward. That combination is part of what makes it complicated, and part of what makes it matter.
At Keewaytin, we spend this day honouring the elders, families, and communities who carry that history, including our own. We also spend it thinking about what comes next, because remembering on its own isn’t enough. The work doesn’t end when the day does.
For us, that next part means economic reconciliation. Keewaytin exists to support First Nations in achieving reconciliation through their work with major projects and industry across Canada. Real reconciliation isn’t just acknowledgement. It’s Indigenous communities holding real decision-making power, real ownership, and real terms in the projects happening on their own territories, not a seat someone else designed for them.
That’s a big shift for a lot of communities to make on their own, especially when the pace of industrial development in Canada keeps accelerating. Energy transition projects, critical minerals development, pipelines, and infrastructure corridors are all moving forward at once, and federal policy increasingly expects Indigenous consultation and participation to go with them. Communities are being approached by proponents and governments before they have the governance structures or technical capacity in place to fully engage on their own terms.
That’s the gap Keewaytin was built to close. We bring more than 45 years of lived experience in industrial development, Indigenous governance, and relationship-building in Northern Alberta, the kind of experience that comes from sitting at the table, not advising from outside it. We help communities build governance readiness, prepare for major project engagement, and structure the partnerships and joint ventures that turn participation into real ownership.
Keewaytin is wholly owned by Willow Lake Métis Group on behalf of Willow Lake Métis Nation. The work we do doesn’t stop at any single project. It goes back into education, training, healthcare, and cultural programming for the Nation we come from.
That’s why we mark this day the way we do. Not by choosing between remembering and moving forward, but by doing both, together, the same way we ask every community we work with to do.