NHNSA recognizes Emancipation Day as a day to reflect and to pay tribute to those that paved a way to freedom for so many enslaved people.

In 2021, Canada’s House of Commons members voted unanimously to officially recognize August 1 as Emancipation Day. This date is significant because it marks the day in 1834 when the Slavery Abolition Act came into effect, across the British Empire. The Act initiated the legal abolition of centuries of slavery that impacted over 800,000 people.

Canadians are not always aware that Black and Indigenous Peoples were once enslaved on the land we now call Canada. Those who fought enslavement were pivotal in shaping our society to be richly diverse.

Nova Scotia is home to more than 50 officially designated African Canadian communities. We must continue to actively engage to eliminate racism and discrimination and to further educate ourselves on the many, meaningful contributions of Nova Scotians and Canadians of African descent and our Indigenous peoples. We also acknowledge that we are in Mi’kma’ki, the ancestral and unceded territory of the Mi’kmaq People, covered by the “Treaties of Peace and Friendship”.

Source: Canadian Heritage, Government of Canada