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Residential Schools in Canada: A Timeline

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Residential Schools in Canada: A Timeline

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The history of residential schools in Canada can be traced as far back as the 17th century.

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Residential Schools in Canada: A Timeline

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Residential schools and the effects on Indigenous health and well-being in Canada—a scoping review

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Residential schools and the effects on Indigenous health and well-being in Canada—a scoping review

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Residential schools and the effects on Indigenous health and well-being in Canada—a scoping review - Public Health Reviews

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Background The history of residential schools has been identified as having long lasting and intergenerational effects on the physical and mental well-being of Indigenous populations in Canada. Our objective was to identify the extent and range of research on residential school attendance on specifi…

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'I'm home': Brothers separated by Sixties Scoop reunite after 50 years apart

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'I'm home': Brothers separated by Sixties Scoop reunite after 50 years apart

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Nick Helliwell and Anthony Stonechild were separated when they were 2 and 4 respectively

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It's a reunion 50 years in the making.

Nick Helliwell was two years old when he and his four-year-old brother Anthony Stonechild were separated during the Sixties Scoop; when tens of thousands of First Nations, Métis and Inuit children were taken from their families and put in foster care or adopted, mostly into white families.

On Tuesday, they saw each other for the first time in 50 years at the Regina International Airport.

Helliwell watched in anticipation surrounded by his wife, older brother Henry Blair Pascal and grandchildren as people poured off the plane. Then, catching sight of Stonechild, he said quietly, "That's him."

The three brothers embraced at the bottom of the stairs.

"I recognized him immediately as I saw him come down the walkway. I just knew that was him," Helliwell said.

Stonechild explained: "It's like a spirit. It's still there."

Stonechild and Helliwell connected over Facebook through another of their brothers, who lives in Prince Albert, Sask. They both described being "overwhelmed" because their sense of family has been skewed by their childhood experience of separation and the stripping of their identity.

Stonechild, who now lives in Vancouver, said his life has been lonely.

"The feelings of family and all that become very, very complicated and ... polluted by prejudices that are imposed upon me," he said.

"But honestly, the only thing I remember when I think back on my family is an incredible sense of love that I never felt in any of the families that I was placed in."
Watch the brothers' reunion here:
Both Stonechild and Helliwell were in multiple homes as small children. Stonechild said he was moved every three months for a time.

"I call it the kaleidoscope of life. Every three months, I would close my eyes, open them and everything is different," Stonechild said.

"The fact that we have been able to create families of our own and develop long-term connections in our lives is a little bit of a miracle because our childhoods were constant disruption," Stonechild said.

Helliwell said he was in 15 different homes before he turned six.

"That experience completely disconnected me from any sense of family or home," he said.

"Reconnecting with family now becomes a really, really scary prospect for me because I realize that very fundamental parts of my being have been damaged."

The brothers have family in Peepeekisis First Nation, located about 90 kilometres northeast of Regina, where they plan to visit during the week Stonechild is in the area. They also want to travel to Prince Albert to visit their other brother.

Helliwell said the realization he and his brothers have lost so much time hit hard.

"There's not enough time ahead of us to make up. That's a sense of loss that I feel," he said.

Stonechild said he has spent much of his life feeling out of place, having felt shame imposed on him for being Indigenous.

All along there were people out there who loved him, but he just didn't know how to reach them, he said.

"This is the first time I've walked into a world that I really feel that I belong back in," Stonechild said.

Helliwell turned to his brother and said, "Your first words to me were 'I'm home' ... and now we have to figure out what that means."

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'I'm home': Brothers separated by Sixties Scoop reunite after 50 years apart | CBC News

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Nick Helliwell was two when he and his four-year-old brother Anthony Stonechild were separated and adopted into white families as part of the Sixties Scoop. On Tuesday, they saw each other for the first time in 50 years at the Regina International Airport.

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Sixties Scoop survivor finds sister, only to lose her again

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Sixties Scoop survivor finds sister, only to lose her again

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Sixties Scoop survivor finds sister, only to lose her again

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It was a sad period in our past when Indigenous children lost their names, languages and connection to their heritage.

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Many non-Indigenous Canadians have never heard of The Sixties Scoop, but for the four Dene siblings featured in the documentary Birth of a Family, it meant growing up disconnected from a family and culture they have only recently started to piece together.

The Sixties Scoop is the catch-all name for a series of policies enacted by provincial child welfare authorities starting in the mid-1950s, which saw thousands of Indigenous children taken from their homes and families, placed in foster homes, and eventually adopted out to white families from across Canada and the United States. These children lost their names, their languages, and a connection to their heritage. Sadly, many were also abused and made to feel ashamed of who they were.

Siblings Betty Ann, Esther, Rosalie and Ben, now in their 50s, are getting to know each other as a family for the first time, and try to reconnect with their lost Dene heritage. And while Birth of a Family is a joyful reunion, it is also punctuated by a sense of sadness for the years that were lost.

What was the Sixties Scoop, and how did it impact Indigenous communities? Here are a few facts you should know:

It stretched well beyond the '60s

Non-Indigenous child welfare authorities began apprehending Indigenous children long before the 1960s, but this organized, concerted effort to remove Indigenous kids from their homes kicked off in 1965. The practice continued throughout the 1970s and well into the '80s.

In 1983, researcher Patrick Johnson coined the term "Sixties Scoop" in a report on Aboriginal child welfare commissioned by the Canadian Council on Social Development.

Two years later, Justice Edwin Kimelman would release a review of Indigenous child apprehension called No Safe Place: Review Committee on Indian and Métis Adoptions and Placements. After reviewing the file of every Native child who had been adopted by an out-of-province family, Judge Kimelman stated: 'that cultural genocide has been taking place in a systematic, routine manner'. The report was highly critical of what it called "an abysmal lack of sensitivity to children and families." The Kimelman Report would mark the end of the Sixties Scoop era.

Saskatchewan even had an adoption agency set up to facilitate these adoptions

AIM, or Adopt Indian and Métis, was a program set up by Saskatchewan's Department of Social Services with the aim of placing First Nations and Métis kids in white households. AIM often placed newspapers ads with the children's pictures, and would sometimes adopt children out to families in the United States.

Single mothers were sometimes coerced into giving up their children

Many women reported being pressured by doctors, nurses and social workers to give up their children shortly after birth. Women who voluntarily handed over their children would often be told that the arrangement was only temporary until they could get back on their feet. When these mothers attempted to bring their children home, they would find out the children had already been adopted.

Many administrators used the Scoop as a tool of forced assimilation

Some of the program's administrators believed that if the children were removed from their homes early enough, they wouldn't "imprint" as Indigenous people. Much like the residential school system before it, the Sixties Scoop was part of a broader plan to force Indigenous people into the Canadian mainstream.

Children were often removed from stable, loving extended families

Intact, loving families that were deemed to be in some way "insufficient" by white middle-class social workers had their children taken away, rather than getting support from the province. A family living on a traditional diet of dried meat and berries might be accused of not providing for their children based on the lack of a fridge or pantry shelf. Making matters worse, siblings were often separated. Indigenous children were often brought up in entirely white environments.

"I feel like I've been ripped off," says Betty Ann Adam in Birth of a Family. "We didn't have the residential school to separate us from our culture and our language. We had the Sixties Scoop."

Canadians are finally beginning to acknowledge the harm caused by the Scoop

In 2015, Manitoba issued a formal apology to Scoop victims in that province. In February 2017, an Ontario judge presiding over a class action suit ruled that the federal government failed in its "duty of care" for the 16,000 Indigenous Ontarians who were separated from their families.

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Many non-Indigenous Canadians have never heard of The Sixties Scoop, but for the four Dene siblings featured in the documentary Birth of a Family , it meant growing up disconnected from a family and culture they have only recently started to piece together.

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The term Sixties Scoop was coined by Patrick Johnston, author of the 1983 report Native Children and the Child Welfare System. It refers to the mass removal of Aboriginal children from their families into the child welfare system, in most cases without the consent of their families or bands.

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The Sixties Scoop & Aboriginal child welfare

In the case of Aboriginal mothers, stories of government involvement in family life often go back generations. The legacy of removing children from their families and communities, first through the residential schools, and then through the child protection system, continues to impact the lives of these mothers, their children and their grandchildren.

-Pivot Legal Society, Broken Promises

The term Sixties Scoop was coined by Patrick Johnston, author of the 1983 report Native Children and the Child Welfare System. It refers to the mass removal of Aboriginal children from their families into the child welfare system, in most cases without the consent of their families or bands. Professor Raven Sinclair recounts that Johnston told her that a B.C. social worker provided the phrase when she told him "...with tears in her eyes-that it was common practice in B.C. in the mid-sixties to 'scoop' from their mothers on reserves almost all newly born children. She was crying because she realized-20 years later-what a mistake that had been." ¹ The Sixties Scoop refers to a particular phase of a larger history, and not to an explicit government policy. Although the practice of removing Aboriginal children from their families and into state care existed before the 1960s (with the residential school system, for example), the drastic overrepresentation of Aboriginal children in the child welfare system accelerated in the 1960s, when Aboriginal children were seized and taken from their homes and placed, in most cases, into middle-class Euro-Canadian families. This overrepresentation continues today.

An epidemic of Aboriginal child apprehension

The government began phasing out compulsory residential school education in the 1950s and 1960s as the public began to understand its devastating impacts on families. It was the general belief of government authorities at the time that Aboriginal children could receive a better education if they were transitioned into the public school system. Residential schools, however, persisted as a sort of boarding school for children whose families were deemed unsuitable to care for them. This transition to provincial services led to a 1951 amendment that enabled the Province to provide services to Aboriginal people where none existed federally. Child protection was one of these areas. ² In 1951, twenty-nine Aboriginal children were in provincial care in British Columbia; by 1964, that number was 1,466. Aboriginal children, who had comprised only 1 percent of all children in care, came to make up just over 34 percent. ³

In the 1960s, the child welfare system did not require, nor did it expect, social workers to have specific training in dealing with children in Aboriginal communities. Many of these social workers were completely unfamiliar with the culture or history of the Aboriginal communities they entered. What they believed constituted proper care was generally based on middle-class Euro-Canadian values. For example, when social workers entered the homes of families subsisting on a traditional Aboriginal diet of dried game, fish, and berries, and didn't see fridges or cupboards stocked in typical Euro-Canadian fashion, they assumed that the adults in the home were not providing for their children. Additionally, upon seeing the social problems reserve communities faced, such as poverty, unemployment, and addiction, some social workers felt a duty to protect the local children. In many cases, Aboriginal parents who were living in poverty but otherwise providing caring homes had their children taken from them with little or no warning and absolutely no consent. ⁴ In fact, it was not until 1980 that the Child, Family and Community Services Act required social workers to notify the band council if an Aboriginal child were removed from the community. ⁵

An alarmingly disproportionate number of Aboriginal children were apprehended from the 1960s onward. By the 1970s, roughly one third of all children in care were Aboriginal. ⁶ Approximately 70 percent of the children apprehended were placed into non-Aboriginal homes, ⁷ many of them homes in which their heritage was denied. In some cases, the foster or adoptive parents told their children that they were French or Italian instead. ⁸ Government policy at the time did not allow birth records to be opened unless both the child and parent consented. This meant that many children suspected their heritage but were unable to have it confirmed.

Many children floated from foster home to foster home or lived in institutionalized care. Physical and sexual abuse was not uncommon, but it was usually covered up, rendered invisible by the lack of social services and support for Aboriginal families and the affected children, a result of the general social reluctance to publicly acknowledge such abuse at the time. ⁹ The Aboriginal Committee of the Family and Children's Services Legislation Review Panel's report Liberating Our Children describes the negative consequences for Aboriginal children:

The homes in which our children are placed ranged from those of caring, well-intentioned individuals, to places of slave labour and physical, emotional and sexual abuse. The violent effects of the most negative of these homes are tragic for its victims. Even the best of these homes are not healthy places for our children. Anglo-Canadian foster parents are not culturally equipped to create an environment in which a positive Aboriginal self-image can develop. In many cases, our children are taught to demean those things about themselves that are Aboriginal. Meanwhile, they are expected to emulate normal child development by imitating the role model behavior of their Anglo-Canadian foster or adoptive parents. The impossibility of emulating the genetic characteristics of their Caucasian caretakers results in an identity crisis unresolvable in this environment. In many cases this leads to behavioural problems, causing the alternative foster or adoption relationship to break down. The Aboriginal child simply cannot live up to the assimilationist expectations of the non-Aboriginal caretaker. ¹⁰

Impacts of the Sixties Scoop

Children growing up in conditions of suppressed identity and abuse tend eventually to experience psychological and emotional problems. For many apprehended children, the roots of these problems did not emerge until later in life when they learned about their birth family or their heritage. Social work professor Raven Sinclair describes these experiences as creating "tremendous obstacles to the development of a strong and healthy sense of identity for the transracial adoptee." Feelings of not belonging in either mainstream Euro-Canadian society or in Aboriginal society can also create barriers to reaching socio-economic equity. ¹¹

The shift in child welfare policy

Several factors came together to instigate a change in the state of Aboriginal child welfare in Canada. The influential National Indian Brotherhood's 1972 report Indian Control over Indian Education inspired Aboriginal leaders to take control of other social services as well. Some Aboriginal leaders, including Secwepemc leader Wayne Christian, helped draw attention to the disproportionately high number of Aboriginal children apprehended by child welfare services and to the need to act. ¹² In 1983, the Canadian Council on Social Development commissioned Patrick Johnston to undertake what became the first comprehensive statistical overview of Aboriginal child welfare. The results showed that Aboriginal children were consistently overrepresented in child welfare services.

In 1985, Justice Edwin Kimelman released a highly critical review of Aboriginal child apprehension entitled No Quiet Place: Review Committee on Indian and Métis Adoptions and Placements. In this report, popularly known as The Kimelman Report, Kimelman and his committee, after holding hearings and listening to oral testimony, made 109 recommendations for policy change. Kimelman concluded that "cultural genocide has taken place in a systematic, routine manner." He was particularly appalled at the tendency to have Aboriginal children from Canada adopted out to American families, calling it a policy of "wholesale exportation." Kimelman finished his report by expressing his thoughts on his findings:

An abysmal lack of sensitivity to children and families was revealed. Families approached agencies for help and found that what was described as being in the child's "best interest" resulted in their families being torn asunder and siblings separated. Social workers grappled with cultural patterns far different than their own with no preparation and no opportunity to gain understanding. ¹³

Child apprehension became viewed as successor to the residential school system and as a new form of "cultural genocide." Under article 2(e) of the U.N. Convention on Genocide (1948), "forcibly transferring children of the group to another group" constitutes genocide when the intent is to destroy a culture. ¹⁴

During the 1980s, the accumulation of the Kimelman report, the Johnston report, and resolutions by First Nations bands led provinces to amend their adoption laws to prioritize prospective adoption placements as follows: first, within the extended family of the child; second, by another Aboriginal family; third, by a non-Aboriginal family.

In 1990, Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC) created the First Nations Child and Family Services program (FNCFS), which transferred administration of child and family services from the province or territory to the local band. Under the program, bands administer these services according to provincial or territorial legislation and child welfare standards, and INAC helps fund the bands' child and family welfare agencies. Bands have increasingly taken control over their own child protection services. These services have also undergone some reform, such as expanding resources for single parents and establishing juvenile probation services. ¹⁵ A Métis Child-Family Services program based in Edmonton is another example of an organization which incorporates traditional values into its adoptive family assessments. In many provinces and territories across Canada, a child is now entitled to know its background, and cultural appropriateness is considered in the assessment and screening of potential caregivers. ¹⁶

What is the situation today?

Sadly, the involvement of the child welfare system is no less prolific in the current era...the "Sixties Scoop" has merely evolved into the "Millennium Scoop."

- Sinclair, "Identity lost and found: Lessons from the sixties scoop."

The Sixties Scoop refers to a particular time in history-roughly 1961 to the 1980s. During the 1980s the government changed child welfare laws so that bands could run their own social service, but problems similar to those seen during the Sixties Scoop persist today. In June 2000, INAC and the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) conducted a policy review of INAC's FNCFS initiative and came up with 17 recommendations for improvements. A May 2008 report from the Auditor General of Canada found that Aboriginal children are still vastly overrepresented in care, citing that 51 % of all children in care in B.C. are Aboriginal, even though Aboriginal people comprise 8 % of B.C.'s population. The report further states that an Aboriginal child in British Columbia is "six times more likely to be taken into care than a non-Aboriginal child." ¹⁷

In 2007, the AFN filed a complaint with the Canada Human Rights Commission claiming that INAC's funding provisions created inequality between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal communities. In May 2008, Canada's Auditor General confirmed that "current funding practices do not lead to equitable funding among Aboriginal and First Nations communities." ¹⁸

In 1989, Canada helped draft the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, an international instrument that set out the minimum standards of human rights for children everywhere. Although Canada helped draft the Convention, in 2007 UNICEF reported that "Canada has been slow to honour its commitment to uphold those rights and ensure the well-being of children." The report addressed the situation of Aboriginal children in particular: "Improvements are urgently needed to ensure that Aboriginal children have adequate housing, safe food and water, protection from environmental contaminants and access to health care." ¹⁹

Policy continues to be reviewed and revised, but the complexities of Aboriginal child welfare are not to be underestimated.

By Erin Hanson

Recommended resources:

Canada. Report on the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, Volume 3, Gathering Strength. Chapter 2, "Families." Ottawa: Minister of Supply and Services Canada, 1996. 9-106.

Bennett, Marilyn. "First Nations Fact Sheet: A General Profile on First Nations Child Welfare in Canada." First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada. Available online at: https://fncaringsociety.com/sites/default/files/docs/FirstNationsFS1.pdf

Blackstock, Cindy, et al. "Keeping the Promise: The Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Lived Experiences of First Nations Children and Youth." First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada, 2004. Available online at: https://fncaringsociety.com/sites/default/files/docs/KeepingThePromise.pdf

Fournier, Suzanne and Ernie Crey. Stolen from Our Embrace. Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre Ltd., 1997.

Mandell, Deena, et al. "Chapter Three: Aboriginal Child Welfare." In Cameron, Gary, Nick Coady, and Gerald R. Adams, eds. Moving Toward Positive Systems of Child and Family Welfare: Current Issues and Future Directions. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2007.

Sinclair, Raven. 2007. "Identity lost and found: Lessons from the sixties scoop." First Peoples Child and Family Review. 3.1 (2007): 65-82. Available online at: https://fncaringsociety.com/sites/default/files/online-journal/vol3num1/Sinclair_pp65.pdf

Swidrovich, Cheryl Marlene. "Positive Experiences of First Nations Children in non-Aboriginal Foster or Adoptive Care: De-Constructing the "Sixties Scoop." MA Thesis, University of Saskatchewan. 2004. Available online at: http://hdl.handle.net/10388/etd-07082008-141746

Walmsley, Christopher. Protecting Aboriginal Children. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2005.
Film
Richard Cardinal: Cry from the Diary of a Métis Child. Dir. Alanis Obomsawin. National Film Board of Canada, 1986. 29 minutes.

A heartbreaking film about a Métis boy who moved from foster home to foster home since the age of four. Richard committed suicide at the age of seventeen. Alanis Obomsawin uses the diary he left behind to create this tribute to Richard. It can be watched online at: http://www.nfb.ca/film/richard_cardinal/

Websites
Indian & Northern Affairs Child and Family Services Program: http://www.ainc-inac.gc.ca/hb/sp/fncf/index-eng.asp

First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada (FNCFCS): http://www.fncfcs.com/home.html

FNCFCS First Nations Research Site: http://www.fncfcs.com/projects/FNRS.html

FNCFCS Resource list: http://www.fncfcs.com/resources/childwelfareResources.html

First Nations Child and Family Services Compensation Process: http://www.fnchildcompensation.ca

Reducing the Number of Indigenous Children in Care: https://www.sac-isc.gc.ca/eng/1541187352297/1541187392851
Newspaper articles
Dolha, Lloyd. "The Sixties Scoop: How Canada's "Best Intentions" Proved Catastrophic." The First Nations Drum, March 2009. Available online at: http://www.firstnationsdrum.com/2009/03/the-sixties-scoop-how-canadas-best-intentions-proved-catastrophic/

Philp, Margaret. "The Land of Lost Children." The Globe and Mail. 21 December 2002: F4. Available online at: http://www.fact.on.ca/news/news0212/gm021221a.htm

Lyons, Tom. "For more than 20 years, Canada took native children from their homes and placed them with white families. Now a lost generation want its history back." http://www.cuckoografik.org/trained_tales/orp_pages/news/news5.html
Reports
Ball, Jessica. "Promoting Equity and Dignity for Aboriginal Children in Canada." Institute for Research on Public Policy Choices . 14 (7). June, 2008. Available online at: https://irpp.org/research-studies/promoting-equity-and-dignity-for-aboriginal-children-in-canada/

Canada. Auditor General of Canada. "Chapter 4-First Nations Child and Family Services Program-Indian and Northern Affairs Canada." In 2008 May Report of the Auditor General of Canada, 2008 . Available online at: https://www.oag-bvg.gc.ca/internet/English/parl_oag_200805_04_e_30700.html

Canadian Council of Provincial Child and Youth Advocates. "Aboriginal Children & Youth in Canada: Canada Must do Better." June 23, 2010. Available online at: http://www.cccya.ca/images/english/pdf/aboriginal_children_youth_advocates_position_paper_2010.pdf

Johnston, Patrick. Native Children and the Child Welfare System. Toronto: James Lorimer and the Canadian Council on Social Development, 1983.

Kimelman, Edwin C. No quiet place: final report to the Honourable Muriel Smith, Minister of Community Services / Review Committee on Indian and Métis Adoptions and Placements . Manitoba: Review Committee on Indian and Métis Adoptions and Placements, 1983.

Pivot Legal Society. Broken Promises: Parents Speak Out about B.C.'s Child Welfare System. Pivot Legal Society, 2008. Available online at: https://www.pivotlegal.org/broken_promises

White, Lavina and Eva Jacobs. Liberating Our Children, Liberating Our Nations: Report of the Aboriginal Committee. Community Panel of Family and Children's Services Legislation Review in British Columbia. Victoria: Minister of Social Services, 1992.

Endnotes

¹ Johnston, Patrick. Personal email communication with Raven Sinclair, December 8, 2005. As quoted and cited in Sinclair, Raven. "Identity lost and found: Lessons from the sixties scoop." First Peoples Child and Family Review. 3(1), 2007: 66.

² This amendment specifically applied to Section 88 of the Indian Act. Pivot, 21 .

³ Liberating our children, 2; Pivot, 21

⁴ Fournier, Suzanne and Ernie Crey. Stolen from Our Embrace. Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre Ltd., 1997. 30.

⁵ Walmsley, Christopher. Personal correspondence, June 22, 2010. .

⁶ Sinclair, 66; Fournier and Crey; Johnston, Patrick. Native Children and the Child Welfare System. Toronto: James Lorimer and the Canadian Council on Social Development, 1983.23.

⁷ Sinclair, 66.

⁸ Lyons, Tom. "For more than 20 years, Canada took native children from their homes and placed them with white families. Now a lost generation want its history back." http://www.cuckoografik.org/trained_tales/orp_pages/news/news5.html

⁹ Fournier and Crey.

¹⁰ Lavina White and Eva Jacobs, Liberating Our Children Liberating Our Nations. Report of the Aboriginal Committee Community Panel Family and Children's Services Legislation Review in British Columbia, 1992: 19-20.

¹¹ Sinclair, 66.

¹² Sinclair, 67.

¹³ Kimelman, Edwin C. No quiet place: final report to the Honourable Muriel Smith, Minister of Community Services / Review Committee on Indian and Métis Adoptions and Placements. Manitoba. Review Committee on Indian and Métis Adoptions and Placements, 1985: 274.

¹⁴ Sinclair, 67.

¹⁵ Manitoba, "Chapter 14: Aboriginal Child Welfare." The Justice System and Aboriginal People: Report of the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry of Manitoba. The Aboriginal Justice Implementation Commission, 1999.

¹⁶ Canada. Report on the Royal Commission of Aboriginal Peoples, Volume 3: Gathering Strength. Ottawa: Minister of Supply and Services, 1996. 30.

¹⁷ Canada. Auditor General of Canada. "Chapter 4-First Nations Child and Family Services Program-Indian and Northern Affairs Canada." In 2008 May Report of the Auditor General of Canada, 2008 . Available online at: https://www.oag-bvg.gc.ca/internet/English/parl_oag_200805_04_e_30700.html

¹⁹ Ball, Jessica. "Promoting Equity and Dignity for Aboriginal Children in Canada." Institute for Research on Public Policy Choices. 14 (7). June, 2008: 21.

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The Sixties Scoop & Aboriginal child welfare In the case of Aboriginal mothers, stories of government involvement in family life often go back generations. The legacy of removing children from their families and communities, first through the residential schools, and then through the child protection system, continues to impact the lives of these mothers, their children and their grandchildren.

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VIDEO briefly explaining what residential schools were

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VIDEO briefly explaining what residential schools were

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https://youtu.be/9TeW4hW1QD0

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"What was the '60s Scoop?"  by Andrew Russel
Taken from the Global News website, this article explains the legacy of the 60s Scoop and the intergenerational trauma caused by this old, federal government policy.

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Thousands of First Nations, Métis and Inuit across Canada who were ripped from their homes as children are getting their day in court after a years-long struggle in what has become known as the " Sixties Scoop," a painful, but little-understood chapter of Canadian history.

The so-called scoop happened between the 1960s and the 1980s and saw thousands of aboriginal children taken from their homes by child-welfare service workers and placed with mostly non-aboriginal families. In some cases, children were sent to live with families in other provinces, the United States and the U.K., often without the consent of their parents.

A legacy of 'cultural genocide'

The fallout from the practice has negatively impacted generations of aboriginal Canadians.

The final Truth and Reconciliation Commission report stated "the effects of the residential school experience and the Sixties Scoop have adversely affected parenting skills and the success of many Aboriginal families."

"By the end of the 1970s, the transfer of children from residential schools was nearly complete in Southern Canada, and the impact of the Sixties Scoop was in evidence across the country," the TRC said.

"In 1977, Aboriginal children accounted for 44 per cent of the children in care in Alberta, 51 per cent of the children in care in Saskatchewan, and 60 per cent of the children in care in Manitoba."
READ MORE: Indigenous community shares stories of survival decades after the '60s Scoop
The "Sixties Scoop" has not received the same attention as another dark chapter in Canada's history: the issue of residential schools. And unlike survivors of the residential school system, adults who went through the Sixties Scoop have never received an apology from the federal government. Last June, the Manitoba government formally apologized to those affected.

Marcia Brown Martel, a member of the Temagami First Nation near Kirkland Lake, Ont., was taken by child welfare officials and adopted by a non-native family as a child.

Martel has described what happened to her and thousands of others as "cultural genocide."

"I lost everything, including my name. I lost my family. I lost my language. I lost everything about my culture," Martel told The Canadian Press. "This should never have happened. It was wrong."

Ontario Sixties Scoop case

Dozens of supporters rallied outside a Toronto courtroom Tuesday where an Ontario Superior Court judge will hear opening arguments for a summary judgment in a class action lawsuit against the federal government by survivors of the Sixties Scoop.

At the heart of the Ontario lawsuit, is a federal-provincial arrangement in which Ontario child welfare services placed as many as 16,000 aboriginal children with non-native families from December 1965 to December 1984.
WATCH: Indigenous community shares stories of survival decades after the 60's Scoop
The claim, which has not been proven in court, alleges the children suffered a devastating loss of cultural identity that the federal government should have protected. The suit alleges plaintiffs suffered emotional, psychological and spiritual harm from the lost connection to their aboriginal heritage. They are seeking $1.3 billion in damages, or $85,000 for each affected person.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs will argue they have enough evidence to forego a trial and prove that Canada had an obligation in law to ensure that indigenous children removed from their homes retain their cultural identity and heritage.
READ MORE: '60s Scoop plaintiffs finally to get day in court
Tuesday's hearing comes after seven years of delays due to appeals by the federal government, which has fought the claim since it was launched in 2009.

"Today I stand with the survivors of the Ontario Sixties Scoop as they fight for justice and acknowledgement after decades of heartache," said AFN National Chief Perry Bellegarde, in a statement. "Survivors of the Sixties Scoop deserve just resolution and restitution without further delay. The federal government said recently that they would prefer to resolve this issue outside the courtroom. If they are serious then they should work with survivors of the Sixties Scoop to get a respectful, acceptable process in place."

Calls on Ottawa to recognize an 'immense wrong'

A number of indigenous leaders called on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in an open letter to resolve the issue without further delay and to "recognize and right an immense wrong - with both words and deeds."

"This case is about Canadian values - past, present and future," the letter says. "This moment is an opportunity for Canada to put an ugly legacy behind us, for the government to take steps to reform its conduct so that the injustice does not continue and build a better future for all. It's a chance to open the door for future generations to grow up healthy and proud of who they are."

WATCH: Manitoba government formally apologizes for '60s Scoop

Federal Indigenous Affairs Minister Carolyn Bennett has said she wants to see the lawsuit over the Sixties Scoop taken out of court.

"We, as you know - as a government - would like to get things out of court and to a table where we can make those kinds of agreements together, as a way forward," Bennett told reporters in Winnipeg last week.

"We want to work together with all of the litigants that are presently in court and try and get to the table."
*With files from the Canadian Press

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indigenous affairs minister carolyn bennett

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What was the '60s Scoop'? Aboriginal children taken from homes a dark chapter in Canada's history | Globalnews.ca

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Thousands of First Nations, Métis and Inuit across Canada who were ripped from their homes as children are getting their day in court after a years-long struggle in what has become known as the " Sixties Scoop," a painful, but little-understood chapter of Canadian history.

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"The Birth of a Family" by Tasha Hubbard
From the CBC DocPOV series, this film documents a reunion of 4 siblings who were victims of the 60s Scoop, but who finally found each other later in life.