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"Woodcarver", by A Tribe Called Red

Guiding Question:   Describe the mood of this video clip AND what techniques did A Tribe Called Red use to achieve that mood in their song and clip?
Taken from their 2012 self-titled album, this song and video clip retells the shooting of the homeless woodcarver named John T Williams.   Read the following document for more information on the event showcased in this protest song.

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The Halluci Nation - Woodcarver (Official Video)

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"New totem pole is raised in honor of slain carver John T. Williams"

Guiding Question:  What was the cause AND effect of the unlawful shooting of woodcarver, John T Williams, by officer Ian Birk of the Seattle Police Force?

Taken from a 2016 edition of The Seattle Times, this article highlights the reaction of the community to the unlawful shooting of woodcarver, John T. Williams.

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The downtown Seattle intersection where John T. Williams was killed by a Seattle police officer in 2010 is now adorned with paintings of white deer to honor the memory of the First Nations woodcarver.

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Seattle officials and members of John T. Williams' family unveiled a crosswalk painted with white deer Sunday to honor the memory of the First Nations woodcarver who was fatally shot by a police officer six years ago.

The crosswalk, at Boren Avenue and Howell Street, will honor the memory of Williams and underscore the healing relations between police and communities of color, organizers of the ceremony said.

Williams, 50, a member of the Nuu-chah-nulth First Nations in British Columbia, was shot and killed by Seattle police Officer Ian Birk in August 2010 after Birk spotted Williams carrying a knife while crossing Howell. Williams used the knife for carving, his family later said.

An investigation revealed that about four seconds elapsed between the time Birk first ordered Williams to drop the knife and when the officer opened fire.

The Police Department's Firearms Review Board found the shooting was not justified, but Birk was not criminally charged. He later resigned from the Seattle Police Department.

The incident was one of several that prompted a 2011 Department of Justice investigation that found Seattle Police had engaged in a "pattern and practice" of excessive force, and uncovered troubling evidence of biased policing.

During Sunday's ceremony, representatives from Seattle Police and the city's Department of Neighborhoods joined members of the Seattle Indian Health Board and the John T. Williams Organizing Committee in a dedication ceremony near the crosswalk.

At one point, Williams' brother Rick Williams invited Detective Denise "Cookie" Bouldin into the circle. She responded to the gesture by kissing his hand.

Bouldin, who works in special projects, including community outreach, said it was an emotional moment for her. "It meant a lot," she said. "He doesn't show any ill will toward all the police force for what one police officer had done."

Members of the organizing committee are pushing to change a state law that makes it difficult to criminally charge police for questionable uses of deadly force. The law was the subject of a Seattle Times special project, "Shielded by the Law," which found Washington has the most restrictive statute in the nation.

John T. Williams committee members are gathering signatures to put Initiative 873 on the ballot next year.

Mayor Ed Murray, speaking at Sunday's ceremony, noted the nation's heightened awareness of police shootings in communities of color. Several officer-involved shootings, especially those of black men, have caused outrage and protests throughout the U.S.

"We know that what happened just the last few months in this country, we have to find a way to heal," Murray said, referring to changes within the Police Department after the Department of Justice investigation. "We need to acknowledge that we are making progress. We have a long way to go, but we are making progress."

Organizers read the story of the White Deer, the inspiration for the deer painted on the crosswalk. The Nuu-Chah-Nulth story emphasizes walking through life peacefully and the ritual of repeating acts time and again to fully learn them.

Seattle police Capt. John F. Hayes Jr. said it was important for the department to be at the ceremony.

"In order to grow and make it so that we build bridges and we're able to hold hands in time of tragedy, it starts long before a tragedy happens," he said. "It's important that we're all here."

Rick Williams said he has seen some positive changes in the Police Department and hopes to see more as groups continue working peacefully together.

Speaking after Sunday's ceremony, he recalled he frequently found himself fixing things for his little brother while he was alive, and indicated he needed to do something after his death.

"I fixed everything for him all my life but this," he said, adding, "He left me quite a big one to fix."

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Seattle crosswalk dedicated to memory of woodcarver killed by police in 2010

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The downtown Seattle intersection where John T. Williams was killed by a Seattle police officer in 2010 is now adorned with paintings of white deer to honor the memory of the First Nations woodcarver. Share story Seattle officials and members of John T.

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"Unequal Justice: Aboriginals caught in the justice system trap" by PATTY WINSA AND JIM RANKIN of the Toronto Star

Guiding Question:  Aside from the issue of police brutality highlighted in the above song by A Tribe Called Red, what are the OTHER problems in the justice system that cause Indigenous people to mistrust the courts and the prisons so much?

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"It's the only time that we know of in the developed world where a country has been brought before a legal body that can make enforceable orders regarding its current treatment of First Nations children."

Cindy Blackstock

Executive director, First Nations Child and Family Caring Society

As Jill Buckshot describes the addiction that helped put her in prison, her words sometimes slur together over the phone, so that she has to spell out "dope sick" and "Dilaudid."

"Dope sick" refers to the violent physical reaction that occurs when an addict goes a day without drugs. The second term is the narcotic she would steal for.

Buckshot, who became addicted at 25 after having surgery and taking a prescribed narcotic for the pain, would steal steaks from an Ottawa grocery store by hiding them under large packages of toilet paper. Then she'd sell them for half-price.

The thefts kicked off a cycle of incarceration, a revolving door that spun her in and out of jail every two weeks one summer.

"I got caught up in the system," says Buckshot, 30. The former Miss Algonquin Nation, who came ninth out of 32 contestants in the 2002 Miss Indian World competition, was last released from an Ottawa jail in September.

Her story is common among aboriginal women and men. While admissions of white adults to Ontario jails fell 20 per cent between 1992 and 2009, the number of aboriginal inmates continued to go up, even as crime rates went down.

Aboriginal people accounted for less than 2 per cent of Ontario's adult population in 2009, but more than 10 per cent of adults admitted to provincial jails. In federal penitentiaries, they are nearly 20 per cent of inmates.

Proportions are even more skewed when it comes to young offenders. Aboriginal girls account for one of every three jail admissions to a provincial facility for female youth, according to data obtained by University of Toronto doctoral candidate Akwasi Owusu-Bempah through a freedom-of-information request. That is 10 times higher than their proportion of the province's youth population.

Among male youth in jail, aboriginal boys make up 15 per cent. In the general Ontario population, they account for only 3 per cent of boys, which means they are overrepresented in jail by a factor of five.

In a report released Tuesday , former Supreme Court justice Frank Iacobucci harshly criticized the judicial system for "systemic racism" and labeled the marginalization and jailing of aboriginals a "serious crisis."

There's no qualitative difference in the crimes aboriginals and non-aboriginals are put in jail for, among the most common being assault, break-and-enter, and theft and possession, according to a soon to be published report co-written by lawyer Jonathan Rudin. But aboriginal youth are treated more harshly.

In 2009-10, of young offenders convicted for assault, about 25 per cent of aboriginal youth were sent to jail, compared with less than 15 per cent of non-aboriginal youth. Similar discrepancies exist for theft and possession, and break-and-enter crimes.

For young offenders and adults alike, the reason they're in jail often isn't the original sentence, but rather their inability to comply with conditions placed on their release.

Buckshot landed in jail, time and again, for not following bail conditions that stipulated she couldn't possess drug paraphernalia or go downtown.

"They would make the rules, but they knew I was an addict," she says.

Even now, Buckshot still faces trouble with the law due to breaches because of a suicide attempt and a snowstorm that left her with no form of transportation to appear in court.

Jill "was a strong young woman in our community who taught youth hoop dancing, beading and sewing," her mother wrote in an email to the Star. She asked that her name not be used. "Family and friends have tried to help her, but her addiction is stronger than our love for her. So we wait aside until she is ready."

Manitoba, where upwards of 50 per cent of inmates are aboriginal, is one of the provinces building new jails.

In 2012, MP Carolyn Bennett toured the Women's Correctional Centre in Headingley, Man., which has an exercise room, elders' room and "beautiful chalets" where women in custody can keep their children until they're of school age.

"Everything seemed like progress, until I asked the superintendent what they're all here for," says Bennett, the Liberal critic for Aboriginal Affairs.

"And what she said was, practically none of them were initially sentenced to jail . . . Almost all of them had some sort of community sentence with conditions. And with one slip - say they go home for a funeral and associate with someone they're not supposed to - they end up incarcerated."

The situation in northern Ontario is similar. Alvin Fiddler, deputy grand chief of the Nishnawbe Aski Nation, was disturbed by his tour a few years ago of the Kenora district jail, while working with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

The adult facility had about 120 male and 30 to 40 female inmates, almost all aboriginal. Most had cycled in and out, serving an average sentence of two months. The superintendent knew them all by name.

Rudin, dressed in a sweater and jeans, feet encased in moccasins, is sitting in the Yonge St. office where he works as program director of Aboriginal Legal Services of Toronto.

His casual attire belies an impressive resumé that includes Osgoode Hall Law School, an advisory committee at the Ipperwash Inquiry, and arguing aboriginal rights cases at the Supreme Court.

Despite his experience, Rudin says he doesn't have definitive answers as to why aboriginals are so overrepresented in jail. One reason for harsher sentences may be that aboriginal youth rack up more prior offences. But that type of data isn't tracked.

What he knows, anecdotally, is that the system treats first offences by aboriginal offenders more harshly. And, since the penalties escalate, they're likely to be treated even more harshly when they reoffend.

Not always, at least not overtly, he says. Judges may assume that the arrest of a middle-class kid is embarrassing enough in and of itself, and that belief may play a part in sentencing. Judges may hand out stricter punishments to kids from rougher parts of town because they think those kids won't experience equivalent shame.

Judges in remote areas of the province may assume there's no good diversion program available.

Then there are the contributing factors in native communities: poverty, drug abuse, the legacy of residential schools.

Although Ontario's last residential school closed more than 30 years ago, the impact of abuse and separation continues into the next generations. Students sent away to school as young as 6 were taught discipline instead of loving parenting.

"Residential school parents talk about the fact that they were never able to hug their children. They were never able to tell their children they loved them," says Rudin. "And that has an impact."

The legacy of physical and sexual abuse is passed down to third and even fourth generations, who turn to alcohol and drugs to cope, he says. The effects snowball, and they go on to lose their children.

There are now more aboriginal kids in jail and foster care than there ever were in residential schools, says Rudin. Aboriginal children and youth make up 22 per cent of Ontario's Crown wards.

Most children taken away from their parents are never adopted. Anger issues on the part of the child and a zero tolerance policy in foster care can result in the police being called.

"You start racking up charges in the foster care system," says Rudin. "And you start moving from home to home to home."

Ontario has never tracked the relationship between foster care and jail. But a 1995 study of a Saskatchewan penitentiary, part of the Royal Commission Report on Aboriginal Peoples co-written by Rudin, found that 95 per cent of the aboriginal inmates had at some point been adopted or in foster care.

Advocates say there is a correlation between the underfunding and hardship endured by aboriginal families and the fact so many kids are in foster care.

This week, the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal launches a landmark case into allegations that the federal government is underfunding child and family services on reserves.

The case is "historic," says Cindy Blackstock, executive director of the Ottawa-based First Nations Child and Family Caring Society. "It's the only time that we know of in the developed world where a country has been brought before a legal body that can make enforceable orders regarding its current treatment of First Nations children."

For Viola Thomas , there's no question that one pathway to jail is poverty.

Thomas is community relations representative for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission investigation into residential schools. She was also part of a joint project last year with the Native Women's Association of Canada that canvassed 300 incarcerated women and girls - all survivors of the residential schools or children of survivors.

One of the most common charges was minor theft.

"They become criminalized because of breach of probation and then it escalates and then they go and serve their time. And there's no adequate supports for them," says Thomas. "It's then easy to become "systematically criminalized."

Many women told stories of sexual violence they endured because their relatives were survivors of residential schools.

Thomas points to the complexity of treatment needed, not only for the addictions resulting from sexual abuse, but for the trauma itself. The treatment isn't widely available in jail.

"If Canada and the provinces and territories wanted to get rid of some of the bottlenecks in the courts to deal with more serious crimes, then it seems to me that some of these less serious misdemeanours could be handled in a much more efficient way," she says.

And consider this: two-thirds of imprisoned aboriginal women are single mothers - a fact that the Native Women's Association says may be condemning "a new generation to the child welfare system."

This week, the judge who presides over aboriginal youth court in Toronto is trying something new.

Instead of looking down from the bench, Justice Marion Cohen is sitting at a table in the middle of the room. The petite judge is dressed in a black suit, forgoing her judicial robes. Sitting around her are the Crown, defence lawyer, councillors, parents and the accused.

"This is the way we're going to do it from now on," says Cohen, looking over her trendy red-rimmed glasses to address the group.

The specialized court, the first of its first kind for young offenders in Canada, opened six months ago. It sits one afternoon every two weeks in one of the youth courts at 311 Jarvis St.

Around the table are Helen Kavouras Lopes, who is the Legal Aid Ontario duty counsel lawyer, the Crown and aboriginal court worker Juliann Wemigwans. All three try to identify kids who qualify for diversion.

When the Crown agrees, charges are stayed and a volunteer council run by Aboriginal Legal Services of Toronto decides how the kid should make amends. Wemigwans also helps connect youth to community and counselling programs.

Diversion is an important tool, because once the charges are stayed it means the youth is no longer in the system - no longer out on bail - and that eliminates the risk of being tossed into jail for violating conditions such as a 6 p.m. curfew, attending school, staying away from friends, or carrying bail papers.

Those conditions may be onerous for a kid already in trouble with the law.

A study of youth in custody in Toronto and B.C. by the Canadian Institute for Health Information found that 31 per cent had conduct disorders, while as many as one in three had ADHD. Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder also affects many aboriginal communities.

Once in the system, youths can "spiral" if they violate court orders, Kavouras Lopes says.

Kavouras Lopes says she asks every single kid she comes into contact with at the Jarvis St. youth courts if they're aboriginal, so that they can take advantage of the aboriginal court.

On this day, one young offender gets diversion. Another, a 15-year-old held in jail overnight for stealing coughdrops, gets released with the promise of counselling from a court worker with ALST. A third more serious offender, held because he violated his bail curfew, is released to children's aid workers and referred to CAMH for a psychiatric assessment.

The court is one of several aboriginal courts in the city that were created in the wake of a 1999 Supreme Court decision, R. vs. Gladue , that recognized the huge overrepresentation of aboriginals in Canadian jails. The court directed judges to consider the background and individual circumstances of aboriginal offenders and, where reasonable, to look for alternatives to jail.

Besides the youth court, there are now four part-time adult aboriginal courts in the city, although the principles of Gladue are supposed to be applied in all courtrooms. It's up to offenders to identify themselves as aboriginal.

Despite innovations like Gladue, the continuing flow of aboriginal offenders into the jail system can be discouraging.

Aboriginal youth account for less than 1 per cent of young offenders in Ontario who get diversion, says Rudin, even though the Youth Criminal Justice Act specifically addresses people in the justice system to look for alternatives to incarceration for them.

Justice Melvyn Green, one of a number of judges who preside in the adult Gladue court at Old City Hall, wrote in a 2012 paper published in Criminal Reports that Gladue reports - in-depth histories compiled by a caseworker and the offender - can reduce sentencing. But the time to write them, and a shortage of caseworkers, means such reports are written only when the Crown is seeking a six-month sentence or more. That applies to less than 1 per cent of cases, wrote Green.

Despite it all, Rudin remains optimistic.

"All of us here, we're not masochists," he says about his co-workers at ALST, which runs the Gladue program in Toronto. "We don't do this because we want to be depressed. And one of the reasons is because we see success."

Gladue courts now operate in Sarnia and London, and the province has also recently provided $6.25 million in funding to hire 80 new aboriginal mental health and addiction workers. The government is also expanding telepsychiatry and telemedicine for remote communities.

"On a micro level, when you see initiatives like the Gladue court in Toronto, you see that they actually make a difference," says Rudin. "The issue is: When are they going to actually catch on more broadly, and when are things going to change?

"But the fact that there are examples is very powerful, because otherwise people are going to say there's nothing we can do."

Read more on this series by clicking here .

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Unequal Justice: Aboriginals caught in the justice system trap

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"It's the only time that we know of in the developed world where a country has been brought before a legal body that can make enforceable orders regarding its current treatment of First Nations children."

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A map of the Highway of Tears
http://www.cbc.ca/radio/interactives/thecurrent/images/map-highwayoftearsfinal.jpg

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A map and images of women who disappeared on the Highway of Tears
http://wpmedia.nationalpost.com/2012/09/highway-of-tears.gif?w=640

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"Dozens of Women Vanish on Canada’s Highway of Tears, and Most Cases Are Unsolved", by Dan Levin, New York Times

Guiding Question 1:  According to Carolyn Bennett, why are the RCMP's estimates about murdered and missing aboriginal girls not considered to be accurate?
Guiding Question 2:  Why is the Highway of Tears a "serious test for PM Trudeau as he treis to repair the country's relationship with aboriginal peoples"?
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/25/world/americas/canada-indigenous-women-highway-16.html

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"Searchers: Highway of Tears" by Vice Studios
Guiding Question: According to Mary Tagee, why is this issue a "Canadian issue", and not only an aboriginal issue?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xz63Vppw3gE

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"The Hidden Scandal Of Canada's Missing Women", by Journeyman Pictures
Guiding Question 1:   What was the impact of the Tina Fontaine case on Canada?
Guiding Question 2:  What was the police response to Tina's disappearance?

Watch for first 15 minutes of this 40-min documentary.
Of course, you may finish watching the film at home if you are engaged in the stories of Tina Fontaine, Jennifer Catchaway and the issue of murdered and missing aboriginal women and girls

Click here to view the film.

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"To honour Tina Fontaine, protect others like her," by The Globe and Mail, Feb 24, 2018

Guiding Question:  According to this editorial writer, what was the real crime associated with Tina Fontaine?

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We may never know how Tina Fontaine died.

The man charged with murdering her, Raymond Cormier, was acquitted by a jury last week. Despite some disturbing police recordings of Mr. Cormier speaking about Ms. Fontaine's death, he did not confess to the crime and in fact denied involvement in it.

The rest of the evidence against him was weak enough that the defence simply rested when the Crown was through.

Yet it makes perfect sense that feelings should be running high about the verdict, given the circumstantial evidence connecting Mr. Cormier and Ms. Fontaine, the horrific nature of the case, and the acquittal earlier this month of Colten Boushie's killer, Gerald Stanley, another white man accused of murdering a young Indigenous person.

But no matter one's feelings about the verdict, we should take it as a chance to reflect on Ms. Fontaine's fate. The outrage of this case happened not in the courtroom, but when this girl ended living on the street at the age of 15.

We should remember that even if Mr. Cormier is not guilty of killing Ms. Fontaine, someone else likely is: When her body was pulled from the Red River in 2014, it was wrapped in a duvet cover and weighted down with rocks.

We should remember that while she was in the care, such as it was, of Manitoba's woefully underfunded Child and Family Services, she was given a room at a Best Western hotel without nearly enough supervision or support - then a common experience for Indigenous kids in the CFS system.

We should remember that while she was frequently reported missing during her last summer in Winnipeg, she was not really missing but came into contact with police officers, paramedics, security guards and hospital staff, none of whom were able to help her.

Despite the grim circumstances of Ms. Fontaine's life - her mother suffered from alcoholism and her father was beaten to death in 2011 - we should remember that it didn't have to be this way, and that with proper resources she would not have ended up homeless and vulnerable.

We should remember that justice for Tina will not come from protesting the reasonable, if painful, outcome of a trial, but from making sure the next girl like her gets the care and attention she needs from our society.

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Globe editorial: To honour Tina Fontaine, protect others like her

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We may never know how Tina Fontaine died. The man charged with murdering her, Raymond Cormier, was acquitted by a jury last week. Despite some disturbing police recordings of Mr. Cormier speaking about Ms. Fontaine's death, he did not confess to the crime and in fact denied involvement in it.

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"Disturbing trend in debate on inquiry into missing, murdered aboriginal women" by Chelsea Vowel · CBC News

Guiding Question 1:  Explain the opinion of those people who oppose the National Inquiry into Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women.
Guiding Question 2:   Explain the opinion of the writer of this editorial, Chelsea Vowel, about the National Inquiry in MMIW.

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"Creator of Sixties Scoop adoption program says it wasn't meant to place kids with white families", by Jennifer Fowler of CBC News

Guiding Question 1:  Why did the Saskatchewan Social Services department think that the A.I.M program was effective and just?
Guiding Question 2:  Why does the Saskatchewan Native Women's Association think that the A.I.M. program was part of a process of cultural genocide?

BTW... Please take note of how this writer starts her article by "hooking" the reader with the shocking story of the young Cree mother, Lillian Semaganis. Then notice how this writer ends her article with a final clinching concluding sentence about the same woman, Lillian Semaganis.
The conclusion technique of "linking back to your hook" is quite effective and commonly used by professional writers. I hope you can use that technique too. ;-)

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The CBC podcast Finding Cleo, with host Connie Walker, follows a family's search for Cleo Semaganis Nicotine, who was adopted out of her Saskatchewan First Nations community and sent to live in the U.S. during what became known as the Sixties Scoop. Listen to the first eight episodes and read more about the program through which Cleo was adopted, which has been denounced by some as a form "cultural genocide."

It was a devastating day in April 1973 when Lillian Semaganis, a young Cree mother whose six children had all been taken by Saskatchewan social services, opened the Saskatoon Star-Phoenix newspaper to see two of her own daughters advertised for adoption.

Her friend Nora Cummings still chokes up when she remembers the moment.

"She came out holding this newspaper, and she was crying. And she said, 'These are my babies!'"

She came out holding this newspaper and she was crying. And she said, "These are my babies!" - Nora Cummings, on her friend Lillian Semaganis

The ad featuring the smiling faces of her children was for the Saskatchewan government's Adopt Indian Métis program (A.I.M.).

Cummings, who was president of the Saskatchewan Native Women's Association at the time, was so incensed that she immediately recruited hundreds of women for a meeting with the minister of social services to protest the ads.

"The little stories that were written up [to accompany the ads] - when I look at it now, I think about when you're looking to adopt a pet," Cummings said.

Once seen as a success by the Saskatchewan government, A.I.M. is now considered to be a tragic chapter of the Sixties Scoop, an era in which tens of thousands of Indigenous children were taken from their families and put in foster care or adopted, mostly into white families.

Otto Driedger, a former Saskatchewan director of welfare who started A.I.M. and remained with the program for two years afterward, said its only goal was finding children permanent homes.

"The alternative was for them to be in foster homes because of the neglect there was or the abuse that there was in families," Driedger said in his first interview about the program since he left it in the late '60s.

Placing children with white families was "not the basis of the child welfare program," he said.

But while adopting Indigenous children into white homes might not have been the goal, it was largely the result.

And 50-year-old government documents uncovered by a CBC podcast investigating the disappearance of one of Lillian Semaganis's children, Cleopatra Semaganis Nicotine, known as Cleo, detail a tense struggle between the bureaucrats behind A.I.M and Indigenous groups in Saskatchewan who called the adoption program "racist" and an act of "cultural genocide."
Listen to Episode 6: A closer look at Cleo's early life in Little Pine First Nation
'A vicious cycle'

A.I.M. was launched by Saskatchewan Social Services in 1967 as a solution to the growing number of Indigenous children in government care. When Cyril Macdonald, Saskatchewan's minister of welfare, went on television that year to announce the program, he said the number of Indigenous children in care had been growing by 180 per year.
(Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan FILM R-445.5)
"While we have had reasonable success in placing white children for adoption, we have had great difficulty in placing Indian and Métis children," Macdonald explained.

He optimistically predicted A.I.M. would "reduce the possibility of prejudice" against Indigenous children who often cycled through foster homes for years.

"After all, Indian and Métis children have the same potential as white. The only difference is the colour of their skin."

Allyson Stevenson, a University of Regina historian who has studied A.I.M., said the government appeal was "meant to educate white middle-class families about the need for adoptive homes for Indigenous children."

Stevenson said Indigenous children were often removed from their families for the same reasons that have led to their overrepresentation in care today.

"Housing, education, violence against women ... access to child care, affordable food, loss of land - those kinds of things drive the child welfare system," Stevenson said.

"It's a vicious cycle. There are all kinds of reasons people always have for taking kids away from Indigenous families."

One of the reasons was lingering effects from many parents' own experiences in residential schools, and that includes Lillian Semaganis, said Nora Cummings.

"They had a lot of trauma to deal with," said Cummings, now a Métis elder.
Listen to Episode 7: New revelations about Cleo's biological mother, Lillian.
Fewer 'typical adoptions'

Along with newspaper ads, the department of social services ran TV spots for A.I.M. featuring happy Indigenous children in their new, loving homes. The campaign was considered a success.

According to a 1969 report by the Saskatchewan department of welfare, the ad campaign was "dignified and in good taste - as befits a governmental institution which is sponsoring a project of some delicacy."

Department officials also took their pitch to dozens of church and community groups, saying that the program was a way to offset a decrease in "typical adoptions."

In speaking notes used by the program's director, Gerald Jacob, in 1973, the department said, "As you all are aware the pill, abortion and the tendency of mothers to keep their children has virtually dried up the market for typical adoptions - by typical adoption I mean Caucasian, good health and under three months."
Read the other features in the Finding Cleo series:
Within four years of its launch, hundreds of Indigenous children had been placed through A.I.M., 92 per cent of them in white families.

A 1975 report by the director of A.I.M. reveals how little resistance there often was from the courts to removing children from their families.

"Essentially, if the evidence existed that the child was being neglected and if the parents did not agree with our assessment, we could simply take the matter to court and, I believe, in most of the situations, win," it said.

Native Homes for Native Children

Nora Cummings' group, the Saskatchewan Native Women's Association, wanted the care of Indigenous children out of the hands of government altogether, and pitched several proposals for a "Native Home for Native Children" in Saskatoon.

In a document that foreshadowed the federal government's admission 45 years later, the women argued, "each child has a right to his cultural identity and heritage."

"Native children, in many cases, are being placed in white middle class homes, which provide an environment alien to their emotional, spiritual and cultural needs," it said.

The director of social services at the time, D.J. Cameron, not only denied them funding but did not share the women's concern with preserving children's ties to their culture.

"In my mind, it makes little difference to a child what culture he is brought up in," Cameron wrote in 1974.

Minister of Social Services Herman Rolfes expressed the same belief.

"There have been statements made from time to time that the department is guilty of practising racial and cultural genocide because we place native children for adoption in non-native homes. We reject that charge. We do not believe that a child who is placed in a home which is racially different cannot grow up with a healthy and positive identification with his racial and cultural beginnings," he said in 1976.

Stevenson said decisions such as these were rooted in a paternalistic attitude.

"They know best, despite evidence, despite consulting, despite other opinions," she said. "Then they continue to enforce their benevolent program despite objections."

'I have mixed feelings'

Last October, the federal government offered an $800-million settlement to First Nations and Inuit adoptees as compensation for their loss of culture and identity during the Sixties Scoop. Métis people, however, are excluded.

Listen to Episode 8: Connie speaks to the man who created the controversial A.I.M. program
Now retired, Otto Driedger said he understands adoptees' criticisms of the program he started, but the goal was always to get as many children as possible into permanent homes.

"I can understand the hostility that people have because they were taken away from their identity," he said. "I wouldn't say I have regrets. I say I have mixed feelings."

Lillian Semaganis, who once saw her daughters advertised in the newspaper, reunited with most - but not all - of her children as adults. Lillian Semaganis died in 2014.

"She wanted to fight for her children," said her friend Nora Cummings. "She loved her children ... she never, never gave up on them."

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Creator of Indigenous adoption program says it wasn't meant to place kids with white families | CBC News

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The CBC podcast Finding Cleo, with host Connie Walker, follows a family's search for Cleo Semaganis Nicotine, who was adopted out of her Saskatchewan First Nations community and sent to live in the U.S. during what became known as the Sixties Scoop.

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Document 5b:  News article and video clip

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Document 5b:  News article and video clip

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"Indigenous woman plans to deliver baby in secret over foster care fears", by Jeff Lagerquist of CTV News

Guiding Question: Why was there a 2 -day "emergency meeting" in Ottawa between Indigenous leaders and child welfare officials from the government?  Explain the crisis that brought about this meeting.

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Indigenous woman plans to deliver baby in secret over foster care fears

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A Winnipeg woman plans to give birth in secret to avoid child and family services at her local hospital.

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"Canadian police must acknowledge racial bias to fix it, Indigenous advocates say", by Nicole Ireland · CBC News

Guiding Question:  Explain the root cause of Indigenous community's mistrust of police services.

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Document 6b:  News article and video clip

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Document 6b:  News article and video clip

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"Public hearings open in Val-d'Or inquiry into Indigenous issues", by  The Canadian Press

Guiding Question:  Why did this Inquiry take place in Val D'or specifically, and how will this Inquiry help repair the relationship between the Val D'or Indigenous community and police, correctional, and child welfare services?