Overview
- Manitoba passed Bill 210 to formally recognize Nov. 8 as Indigenous Veterans Day and provided nearly $20,000 for a powwow and feast at Winnipeg’s Sergeant Tommy Prince Place.
- Ceremonies and commemorations were held across the Prairies, including a pre-Remembrance service at First Nations University in Regina and events in Winnipeg and other Manitoba communities.
- Veterans and historians highlight that thousands of Indigenous people served—over 4,000 in WWI and more than 3,000 First Nations members in WWII—yet many were denied benefits such as the Soldier Settlement Act and Veteran Land Act.
- Support is growing through the Southern Chiefs’ Organization’s First Nations Veterans Program, which uses a medicine wheel framework and partners with 17 Wing Winnipeg’s Indigenous advisory team and on-site sweat lodge, as veterans welcome the CAF’s recent apology for systemic racism.
- The Last Post Fund’s Indigenous Initiative reports more than 265 culturally appropriate grave markers placed since 2019, with 24 community researchers continuing to locate unrecognized Indigenous veterans’ graves.