Sixties Scoop
   HOME

TheInfoList



Click Here for Items Related To - Sixties Scoop
OR:
Sixties Scoop on:   [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Amazon]

The Sixties Scoop was a period in which a series of policies were enacted in
Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
that enabled
child welfare Child protection is the safeguarding of children from violence, exploitation, abuse, and neglect. Article 19 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child provides for the protection of children in and out of the home. One of the ways to e ...
authorities to take, or "scoop up,"
Indigenous Indigenous may refer to: *Indigenous peoples *Indigenous (ecology), presence in a region as the result of only natural processes, with no human intervention *Indigenous (band), an American blues-rock band *Indigenous (horse), a Hong Kong racehorse ...
children from their families and communities for placement in
foster homes Foster care is a system in which a minor has been placed into a ward, group home (residential child care community, treatment center, etc.), or private home of a state-certified caregiver, referred to as a "foster parent" or with a family mem ...
, from which they would be adopted by
white White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully reflect and scatter all the visible wavelengths of light. White on ...
families. Despite its name referencing the 1960s, the Sixties Scoop began in the mid-to-late 1950s and persisted into the 1980s.Walker, Connie. 2018 March 20.
Saskatchewan's Adopt Indian Métis program
" ''Finding Cleo''. CBC Radio. It is estimated that a total of 20,000 Indigenous children were taken from their families and fostered or adopted out primarily to white middle-class families as part of the Sixties Scoop. Each
province A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or sovereign state, state. The term derives from the ancient Roman ''Roman province, provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire ...
had different foster programs and adoption policies;
Saskatchewan Saskatchewan ( ; ) is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Western Canada, western Canada, bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, to the northeast by Nunavut, and on t ...
had the only targeted Indigenous
transracial adoption Interracial adoption (historically referred to as transracial adoption) refers to the act of placing a child of one racial or ethnic group with adoptive parents of another racial or ethnic group. Interracial adoption is not inherently the same as ...
program, the Adopt Indian Métis (AIM) Program. The term "Sixties Scoop" itself was coined in the early 1980s by social workers in the British Columbia Department of Social Welfare to describe their own department's practice of child apprehension. The phrase first appears in print in a 1983 report commissioned by the Canadian Council on Social Development, titled "Native Children and the Child Welfare System", in which researcher Patrick Johnston noted the source for the term and adopted its usage. It is similar to the term "
Baby Scoop Era The Baby Scoop Era was a period in anglosphere history starting after the end of World War II and ending in the early 1970s, characterized by an increasing rate of pre-marital pregnancies over the preceding period, along with a higher rate of newb ...
," which refers to the period from the late 1950s to the 1980s in which large numbers of children were taken from unmarried mothers for adoption. The government policies that led to the Sixties Scoop were discontinued in the mid-1980s, after
Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...
chiefs had passed resolutions against them, and a
Manitoba Manitoba ( ) is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada at the Centre of Canada, longitudinal centre of the country. It is Canada's Population of Canada by province and territory, fifth-most populous province, with a population o ...
judicial inquiry had harshly condemned them. Associate Chief Judge Edwin C. Kimelman headed the Manitoba inquiry, which resulted in the publication of "No quiet place / Review Committee on Indian and Metis Adoptions and Placements", better known as the "
Kimelman Report The Kimelman Report had a substantial and lasting impact on aboriginal child protection in Canada that was part of a fundamental shift in international child protection paradigms for aboriginal peoples. In the early 1980s, following the notorious ...
". Multiple lawsuits have since been filed in Canada by former wards of the Sixties Scoop, including a series of class-action lawsuits launched in five provinces, such as the one filed in
British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...
in 2011. Beaverhouse First Nation Chief Marcia Brown Martel was the lead plaintiff in the class-action lawsuit filed in Ontario in 2009. On 14 February 2017,
Ontario Superior Court The Superior Court of Justice (French: ''Cour supérieure de justice'') is a superior court in Ontario. The Court sits in 52 locations across the province, including 17 Family Court locations, and consists of over 300 federally appointed judges. ...
Justice Edward Belobaba ruled that the government was liable for the harm caused by the Sixties Scoop; and on 6 October 2017, an $800-million
settlement Settlement may refer to: *Human settlement, a community where people live *Settlement (structural), the distortion or disruption of parts of a building * Closing (real estate), the final step in executing a real estate transaction *Settlement (fin ...
was announced for the Martel case. As
Métis The Métis ( ; Canadian ) are Indigenous peoples who inhabit Canada's three Prairie Provinces, as well as parts of British Columbia, the Northwest Territories, and the Northern United States. They have a shared history and culture which derives ...
and non-status
First Nations First Nations or first peoples may refer to: * Indigenous peoples, for ethnic groups who are the earliest known inhabitants of an area. Indigenous groups *First Nations is commonly used to describe some Indigenous groups including: **First Natio ...
people are currently excluded from the agreement, National Indigenous Survivors of Child Welfare Network—a group led by Sixties Scoop survivors based in Ottawa—has advocated for the settlement to be rejected unless it includes all Indigenous people who were taken from their homes and forcibly adopted.


History

Canada's
residential school system In Canada, the Indian residential school system was a network of boarding schools for Indigenous peoples. The network was funded by the Canadian government's Department of Indian Affairs and administered by Christian churches. The school sys ...
was implemented by the
federal government A federation (also known as a federal state) is a political entity characterized by a union of partially self-governing provinces, states, or other regions under a central federal government (federalism). In a federation, the self-governin ...
and administered by various churches. Its purpose was to remove Aboriginal children from their homes and reserves, so they could teach them Euro-Canadian and Christian values. The Sixties Scoop was an era in Canadian child welfare between the late 1950s to the early 1980s, in which the child welfare system removed Indigenous children from their families and communities in large numbers and placed them in non-Indigenous foster homes or adoptive families, institutions, and residential schools. The Sixties Scoop was further precipitated by the introduction of child welfare services on reserves where social workers argued that Indigenous children were not offered equal services on reserves as non-Indigenous children through provincial social services. The beginning of the Sixties Scoop coincided with Indigenous families dealing with the fall-out of the residential school project which had negative results on their social, economic, and living conditions. The school system was in effect until 1996, when the last school closed. During the Sixties Scoop, children were forcibly apprehended from their Native land and community for an extended period of time, often without knowledge or consent from their families or tribes. Siblings were often intentionally sent to different regions in order to eliminate any form of communication with their families. The policies forbade the children from speaking their own languages, contacting their family, or from acknowledging their culture in any way. These children were not allowed to know of their real nationality, history, or family. When a child wanted to know their cultural identity, they would have to receive consent from their biological parents. Since the government made sure there wasn’t any connection between the children and their biological family, they were never able to actually open their birth records. Thus, the children suspected their cultural heritage, but were unable to confirm or deny it with any evidence. Survivors of the residential schools have come forward and spoken out about physical, spiritual, sexual, and psychological abuse that they experienced at the hand of the residential school staff. The lasting cultural impact on
First Nations First Nations or first peoples may refer to: * Indigenous peoples, for ethnic groups who are the earliest known inhabitants of an area. Indigenous groups *First Nations is commonly used to describe some Indigenous groups including: **First Natio ...
,
Métis The Métis ( ; Canadian ) are Indigenous peoples who inhabit Canada's three Prairie Provinces, as well as parts of British Columbia, the Northwest Territories, and the Northern United States. They have a shared history and culture which derives ...
, and
Inuit Inuit (; iu, ᐃᓄᐃᑦ 'the people', singular: Inuk, , dual: Inuuk, ) are a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic and subarctic regions of Greenland, Labrador, Quebec, Nunavut, the Northwest Territories ...
families and communities has been widespread and extensive. The Canadian government started to close the compulsory residential school system in the 1950s and the 1960s, but the government authorities thought that Aboriginal children would benefit from a better education in the public school system. According to one summary:
This transition to provincial services led to a 1951 'Indian_Act''.html"_;"title="Indian_Act.html"_;"title="'Indian_Act">'Indian_Act''">Indian_Act.html"_;"title="'Indian_Act">'Indian_Act''amendment_that_enabled_the_Province_to_provide_services_to_Aboriginal_people_where_none_existed_federally._Child_protection_was_one_of_these_areas._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.
Canada's_Truth_and_Reconciliation_Commission_(Canada).html" "title="Indian_Act">'Indian_Act''.html" ;"title="Indian_Act.html" ;"title="'Indian Act">'Indian Act''">Indian_Act.html" ;"title="'Indian Act">'Indian Act''amendment that enabled the Province to provide services to Aboriginal people where none existed federally. Child protection was one of these areas. 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. Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (Canada)">Truth and Reconciliation Commission A truth commission, also known as a truth and reconciliation commission or truth and justice commission, is an official body tasked with discovering and revealing past wrongdoing by a government (or, depending on the circumstances, non-state act ...
(TRC), a component of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement, was mandated to document the experiences of Indigenous children in residential schools and to share the truth of survivors, families, communities, and others affected with all Canadians. According to the TRC Commission's final report, published in 2015:
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.
First Nations communities responded to the loss of their children and the resulting
cultural genocide Cultural genocide or cultural cleansing is a concept which was proposed by lawyer Raphael Lemkin in 1944 as a component of genocide. Though the precise definition of ''cultural genocide'' remains contested, the Armenian Genocide Museum defines ...
by repatriating children whose adoptions failed and working to regain control over child welfare practices related to their children, which started in 1973 with the Blackfoot (Siksika) child welfare agreement in Alberta. There are about 125 First Nations Child and Family Service Agencies across Canada, but they operate through a patchwork of agreements that give them authority from the provincial government to provide services and funding from the federal government.


Adopt Indian Métis program

Funded by the Canadian and Saskatchewan governments, the Adopt Indian Métis (AIM) was a program that was started to promote the adoption of
First Nations First Nations or first peoples may refer to: * Indigenous peoples, for ethnic groups who are the earliest known inhabitants of an area. Indigenous groups *First Nations is commonly used to describe some Indigenous groups including: **First Natio ...
children by middle-class white families in 1967. The project was started by Otto Driedger, who later become Director of Child Welfare for Saskatchewan, and Frank Dornstauder. AIM was the only targeted Indigenous
transracial adoption Interracial adoption (historically referred to as transracial adoption) refers to the act of placing a child of one racial or ethnic group with adoptive parents of another racial or ethnic group. Interracial adoption is not inherently the same as ...
program in Canada.
CBC News CBC News is a division of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation responsible for the news gathering and production of news programs on the corporation's English-language operations, namely CBC Television, CBC Radio, CBC News Network, and CBC.ca. ...
produced a television segment about the AIM after the project's first year, in May 1968. It showed several Indian and Métis children playing as the reporter, Craig Oliver, told viewers that they represented only a few of the hundreds of First Nations children ages six weeks to six years who are in need of homes. He stated that there has been an increase in the number of children from these communities who are up for adoption because of the rise in illegitimate births and marriage breakdowns among Indian and Métis people. The government had been taking in nearly 200 children each year as wards of the state and was having difficulty finding permanent homes for them. The news report portrayed the AIM program as a solution to the problem and focused on its quantifiable results by placing 100 children, including several family groups of children, in its first year. When CBC News ran the segment, all of the children remained with their adoptive families. The program advertised the availability of the Indian and the Métis children for adoption by a marketing campaign with radio, television, and newspaper advertising. The large photographs of these children that ran in provincial newspapers with the AIM advertisements were said to be the most effective aspect of its outreach to prospective families. The program also promised fast adoptions, with completion of the process within as few as 10 weeks. The original AIM program ran through 1969 and resulted in an increased interest in transracial adoptions. The focus of the program was broadened in 1970 to include all children, but it continued to over-represent First Nations children given the high number that were taken into custody by social workers in Saskatchewan. For example, in 1969, Indian and Métis people represented only 7.5% of the population of Saskatchewan, but their children accounted for 41.9% of all children in foster homes in the province. In 1971, the Métis Society in Saskatoon formed a Métis Foster Home Committee, led by
Howard Adams Howard Adams (September 8, 1921 – September 8, 2001) was a twentieth century Metis academic and activist. Life He was born in St. Louis, Saskatchewan, Canada, on September 8, 1921, the son of Olive Elizabeth McDougall, a French Métis mot ...
, Phyllis Trochie, Nora Thibodeau, and Vicki Raceme. Its purpose was to challenge the AIM program and research the creation of a Métis-controlled foster home program. Those leading the committee saw the AIM program as detrimental to children, parents and the Métis community. They said that the AIM's advertising campaign was racist, specifically because it implied Métis parents were unable to look after their children, portrayed First Nations children as inferior and unwanted, and suggested that any white family could be accepted for adoptions. A CBC News segment in 1971 by reporter John Warren stated that 500 children had found permanent homes through the AIM program. An unidentified man representing the AIM that Warren interviewed said that the increased adoptions of Indian and Métis children was caused not by prior prejudice but by the increased awareness of their availability for adoption, adding that 170 children up to 10 were in need of homes. Further, the AIM representative stated that four years earlier, "children of native origin" had represented only one in ten of the children adopted in Saskatchewan and for the past two years had represented one in four of the children adopted in the province. The AIM representative said that though it was not the primary goal of the program, he hoped that the AIM would help people of different races understand each other. In his report, Warren also mentioned that First Nations leaders were criticizing the AIM as an attempt at integration and were drafting complaints about the program to bring to federal and provincial leaders. A
CBC Radio CBC Radio is the English-language radio operations of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. The CBC operates a number of radio networks serving different audiences and programming niches, all of which (regardless of language) are outlined below ...
podcast series, ''Missing and Murdered: Finding Cleo'', takes an in-depth look at the experience of a
Cree The Cree ( cr, néhinaw, script=Latn, , etc.; french: link=no, Cri) are a Indigenous peoples of the Americas, North American Indigenous people. They live primarily in Canada, where they form one of the country's largest First Nations in Canada ...
girl named Cleopatra (Cleo) Nicotine Semaganis. In 1974, at the age of nine, Cleo was removed from her family in Saskatchewan as part of the AIM program. The family never saw her again and wanted to know what had happened to her. The series website includes images of the AIM newspaper advertisements featuring photographs and personal and health information about the Indian and Métis children available for adoption. It also includes an internal memo, dated 25 September 1973, from AIM director, G.E. Jacob, that recommended as an Award of Merit to a supervisor in North Battleford, Saskatchewan, Mrs. D. Wilson, as Salesperson of the Year. That award was to recognize the number of children that she made wards of the province and eligible for adoption.


Numbers involved

In 1977, about 15,500 Indigenous children were in the care of child welfare authorities, an estimate based on data from
Indian and Northern Affairs Indian or Indians may refer to: Peoples South Asia * Indian people, people of Indian nationality, or people who have an Indian ancestor ** Non-resident Indian, a citizen of India who has temporarily emigrated to another country * South Asia ...
,
Health and Welfare Canada The Department of National Health and Welfare (NHW), commonly known as Health and Welfare Canada, was a Canadian federal department established in 1944. Its advisory body on welfare was the National Council of Welfare. In June 1993, Prime Ministe ...
,
Statistics Canada Statistics Canada (StatCan; french: Statistique Canada), formed in 1971, is the agency of the Government of Canada commissioned with producing statistics to help better understand Canada, its population, resources, economy, society, and cultur ...
, and provincial departments of social services. They represented 20% of all Canadian children living in care, even though Indigenous children made up less than 5% of the total child population. In 1983, Patrick Johnston, then a program director at the Canadian Council on Social Development, coined the term "Sixties Scoop" in a report on Aboriginal child welfare, titled "Native Children and the Child Welfare System". His research found that Aboriginal children were being disproportionately taken into the child welfare system. Johnston, in researching his report, collected statistical data from various stakeholders within the community, including different levels of government, Aboriginal organizations, and band councils. He got the idea for the term "Sixties Scoop" from a social worker who disclosed "with tears in her eyes – that it was common practice in BC 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." The proportion of children in care who were Aboriginal was 40-50% in
Alberta Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Ter ...
; 60-70% in
Saskatchewan Saskatchewan ( ; ) is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Western Canada, western Canada, bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, to the northeast by Nunavut, and on t ...
; and 50-60% in
Manitoba Manitoba ( ) is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada at the Centre of Canada, longitudinal centre of the country. It is Canada's Population of Canada by province and territory, fifth-most populous province, with a population o ...
. According to the
Aboriginal Justice Implementation Commission The Aboriginal Justice Inquiry (AJI), officially the Public Inquiry into the Administration of Justice and Aboriginal People, was a public inquiry commissioned by the Manitoba government into the administration of justice regarding the 1971 murd ...
, "Johnston estimated that, across Canada, Aboriginal children were 4.5 times more likely than non-Aboriginal children to be in the care of child welfare authorities." Similar findings have been reported by other experts. Most of the children who were removed by social workers did not return to their communities. A 1980 study by the Canadian Council on Social Development found that 78% of status First Nations children who were adopted were placed with non-Indigenous families. Raven Sinclair, an associate professor at the
University of Regina The University of Regina is a public university, public research university located in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. Founded in 1911 as a private denominational high school of the Methodist Church of Canada, it began an association with the Unive ...
and a member of
Gordon First Nation The George Gordon First Nation ( cr, ᐳᓵᑲᓇᒌᕽ ''posâkanacîhk'') is a First Nations band government located near the village of Punnichy, Saskatchewan, in Canada. The nation has an enrolled population of 3,752 people, 1,191 of whom liv ...
, wrote an article titled ''Identity lost and found: Lessons from The Sixties Scoop'' in which she discusses the broader context of the term:
At the same time as we may be alarmed by the statistics, it is important to recognize that the Sixties Scoop was not a specific child welfare program or policy. It names one segment of a larger period in Aboriginal child welfare history where, because questionable apprehensions and adoptions figured prominently, a label was applied. The "Sixties Scoop" has evolved as a descriptor that is now applied to the whole of the Aboriginal child welfare era, simplistically defined here as roughly the time from the waning of residential schools to the mid-1980s period of child welfare devolution and last closings of Indian residential schools.... The white social worker, following on the heels of the missionary, the priest and the Indian agent, was convinced that the only hope for the salvation of the Indian people lay in the removal of their children.


Kimelman Report

A
judicial inquiry A tribunal of inquiry is an official review of events or actions ordered by a government body. In many common law countries, such as the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and Canada, such a public inquiry differs from a royal commission in that ...
over the "Sixties Scoop" in
Manitoba Manitoba ( ) is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada at the Centre of Canada, longitudinal centre of the country. It is Canada's Population of Canada by province and territory, fifth-most populous province, with a population o ...
was headed by Associate Chief Judge Edwin C. Kimelman. The inquiry resulted in the 1985 publication of "No quiet place / Review Committee on Indian and Metis Adoptions and Placements", better known as the "
Kimelman Report The Kimelman Report had a substantial and lasting impact on aboriginal child protection in Canada that was part of a fundamental shift in international child protection paradigms for aboriginal peoples. In the early 1980s, following the notorious ...
". The Kimelman Report was a strong critique of both the existing child welfare system in Manitoba and the practices of its social workers and agencies:
Rather, it is believed that every level of personnel in the child welfare system has been so free of examination for so long that the least attention was viewed as negative criticism. Staff seemed unable to recognize that public examination of the system was long overdue.
The Report included the following allegations against child welfare policies in the province:
The native people of Manitoba had charged that the interpretation of the term "best interest of the child" had been wrought with cultural bias in a system dominated by white, middle class workers, boards of directors, administrators, lawyers and judges. They also alleged that in application of the legislation, there were many factors which were crucially important to the native people which had been ignored, misinterpreted, or simply not recognized by the child welfare system.
It found that Manitoba's non-Indigenous agencies often required single, Indigenous mothers to live on their own, as opposed to in traditional, multi-generational households, to regain custody of their children.
This demand goes against the native patterns of child care. In the native tradition, the need of a young mother to be mothered herself is recognized. The grandparents and aunts and uncles expect the demands and rewards of raising the new member of the family. To insist that the mother remove herself from the support of her family when she needs them most is unrealistic and cruel.
Membership changes in the new ''
Indian Act The ''Indian Act'' (, long name ''An Act to amend and consolidate the laws respecting Indians'') is a Canadian act of Parliament that concerns registered Indians, their bands, and the system of Indian reserves. First passed in 1876 and still ...
'' also prevented single Indigenous mothers from living with their children on reserves and complicated placements with family members. Mothers who chose to remain on reserves with their children had to first prove that the father of their children had First Nations
status Status (Latin plural: ''statūs''), is a state, condition, or situation, and may refer to: * Status (law) ** City status ** Legal status, in law ** Political status, in international law ** Small entity status, in patent law ** Status confere ...
. Additionally, children of unmarried First Nations mothers often could not be placed with families on reserves due to these same membership stipulations. The Kimelman Report included 109 recommendations to address issues that ranged from cultural sensitivity to maintenance of family ties, formal training for professionals, structure of the system, and having records accessible by computer. It went on to refer to the loss of the children as a "cultural genocide." A 1989 follow-up report published in the ''Canadian Journal of Native Studies'' by the
Manitoba Métis Federation The Manitoba Metis Federation (MMF) a federally recognized Métis organization provincially incorporated in Manitoba, Canada, on 28 December 1967. Its current president is David Chartrand. In September of 2021, the MMF withdrew from the Métis Nat ...
indicated that the situation had not improved but in some ways was becoming more problematic for Métis children.
Deanna Reder Deanna Helen Reder is a Cree-Métis associate professor of English and the Chair of Indigenous Studies at Simon Fraser University. Reder was elected a member of the College of New Scholars of the Royal Society of Canada in 2018. As a faculty memb ...
, a Cree-Métis associate professor in the Departments of First Nations Studies and English at
Simon Fraser University Simon Fraser University (SFU) is a public research university in British Columbia, Canada, with three campuses, all in Greater Vancouver: Burnaby (main campus), Surrey, and Vancouver. The main Burnaby campus on Burnaby Mountain, located from ...
, wrote in 2007 that adult adoptees who were affected by these policies have begun to speak out about their losses: loss of their cultural identity, lost contact with their natural families, barred access from medical histories, and for
status Indian The Indian Register is the official record of people registered under the ''Indian Act'' in Canada, called status Indians or ''registered Indians''. People registered under the ''Indian Act'' have rights and benefits that are not granted to othe ...
children, the loss of their status.


Long-term effects

Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) documented the experiences of Indigenous children who were removed from their families and placed in residential schools by the government. TRC Commissioners, who were tasked with sharing this knowledge with all Canadians, focused on child welfare in the first five of 94 calls to action in their final report. Published in 2015, the TRC report addresses the effects of the Sixties Scoop as well that of residential schools on Indigenous communities:
The effects of residential schools and the Sixties Scoop on Aboriginal people and their families resulted in generational and historical trauma that negatively affected parenting skills, social values, economic conditions, and future success. This trauma has caused overwhelming rates of suicide, homicide, depression, substance abuse, alcoholism, child abuse, domestic violence, struggles of self-identity, and other social problems. These factors, combined with prejudicial attitudes toward Aboriginal parenting skills and a tendency to see Aboriginal poverty as a symptom of neglect, and self-inflicting rather than as a consequence of failed government policies which have resulted in grossly disproportionate rates of child apprehension among Aboriginal people.
According to Shandel Valiquette, “ nresidential schools they learned that adults often exert power and control through abuse. The lessons learned in childhood are often repeated in adulthood with the result that many survivors of the residential school system often inflict abuse on their own children.” Stereotypes about Indigenous people lead child welfare workers to more quickly decide to remove children from contemporary homes. Stereotypes around First Nations addiction are frequently repeated with no discussion of the trauma created by government policies like the Sixties Scoop. The negative impact of scooping children away from their families can never be overstated. Such action of kidnapping kids and keeping them away from practicing their cultural values has resulted in the destruction of their social and political structure which was the norm of the Aboriginal communities. This has also resulted in the disruption of the transmission of knowledge that was passed on to the Indigenous children through the telling of stories and values of families, the importance of the elderly, importance of communities over individualism as is the case in the white communities. As a consequence, many children who were placed in homes during the 60’s Scoop have their group identity and cultural knowledge stolen from them. The aftereffects of the Sixties Scoop remain an issue in child welfare provision for Aboriginal communities in Canada. Scholar Chris Walmsley notes in ''Protecting Aboriginal Children'' (2011) that some social workers find themselves in a similar alienated relationship to communities. Walmsley referred to one heavily publicised incident in which 71 children were removed from a community in 1998 (though not all were Aboriginal). One Aboriginal childcare worker said "to me it was very shocking... it reminded me of the Sixties Scoop when kids on-reserve were taken without even their parents being aware of them eingtaken." Walmsley commented that "the condition of victimisation is recreated for the community every time a social worker parachutes into a community, makes a brief assessment, and then leaves with all the children at risk. This form of practice often reactivates the sixties scoop in the minds of the community." Walmsley noted, however, that there is a reverse problem of Aboriginal children in care now being often "off-loaded" onto Aboriginal communities that do not have the resources to deal with them, a process that can exacerbate problems in fragile communities by introducing troubled children with no meaningful ties beyond ethnicity. A 2011
Statistics Canada Statistics Canada (StatCan; french: Statistique Canada), formed in 1971, is the agency of the Government of Canada commissioned with producing statistics to help better understand Canada, its population, resources, economy, society, and cultur ...
study found 14,225, or 3.6%, of all First Nations children aged 14 and under are in foster care, compared with 15,345, or 0.3%, of non-Indigenous children. Canada's 1.4 million First Nations, Inuit, and Métis people disproportionately experience poor living conditions and substandard schooling, among other issues. A 2016 study by the
Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) is an independent think tank in Canada. It has been described as "left leaning". The CCPA concentrates on economic policy, international trade, environmental justice and social policy. It is ...
found that 51% of First Nations children live in poverty. That increases to 60% for First Nations children who live on reserves, with poverty rates reaching 76% in Manitoba and 69% in Saskatchewan for First Nations children living on reserves. The study found poverty rates of 30% for non-status First Nations children, 25% for Inuit children, and 23% for Métis children. (Canada has an overall child poverty rate of 18%, ranking it 27th in the 34 countries in the
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD; french: Organisation de coopération et de développement économiques, ''OCDE'') is an intergovernmental organization, intergovernmental organisation with 38 member countries ...
.) Some foster parents have tried to incorporate the native culture of the children while raising them, but the effects of being physically placed in the foster care systems have continued to negatively impact them. One specific example of how the 60's Scoop affected children throughout their lives is Rose Henry. She was placed into her adoptive parents’ home when she was 8 years old after being apprehended by Canadian government officials in 1966. The foster mother understood the extreme need that Rose had to keep in touch with her biological parents. For the whole of the ten years that she stayed with her foster family, they would make sure that she had some kind of interaction with her biological family. Unfortunately, Rose still ended up homeless due to the everlasting impacts of the Sixties Scoop. She felt torn between her two identities, unsure of where she fits in. She explained that “Going through the Scoop left me wondering which world or culture I belonged in: white Canadian or First Nations community. I was torn between the two. It has had a very damaging effect on me; society told me you’re brown on the outside and white in the middle (as I was brought up in a white home). I was confused and lost, and it was this path that ultimately led me to my life on the streets.” In other cases, adoptive or foster parents would lie to the children by telling them they were Italian or French instead. This was another example of disconnecting these children from their culture and the extent they have gone through in order to inflict cultural genocide. This has compounded the struggle of the First Nations people’s self-identity that still affects them up to this day.
Cindy Blackstock Cindy Blackstock is a Canadian Gitxsan activist for child welfare and executive director of the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada. She is also a professor for the School of Social Work at McGill University. Early life an ...
, PhD, the executive director of the First Nations Child & Family Caring Society of Canada and a professor in the School of Social Work at
McGill University McGill University (french: link=no, Université McGill) is an English-language public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1821 by royal charter granted by King George IV,Frost, Stanley Brice. ''McGill Universit ...
, claims that funding for child and family services on reserves is insufficient. She believes that the Canadian government's funding amounts to discrimination against First Nations children. Canadian government documents support Blackstock's statements and show that Indigenous agencies receive 22-34% less in funding than provincial agencies. Blackstock's organization and the
Assembly of First Nations The Assembly of First Nations (AFN) is an assembly of Canadian First Nations (Indian bands) represented by their chiefs. Established in 1982 and modelled on the United Nations General Assembly, it emerged from the National Indian Brotherhood, wh ...
, a political organization representing all First Nations in Canada, took that concern to the
Canadian Human Rights Commission The Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC) was established in 1977 by the government of Canada. It is empowered under the ''Canadian Human Rights Act'' to investigate and to try to settle complaints of discrimination in employment and in the pr ...
in 2007. Their complaint, which alleged that the Canadian government had a longstanding pattern of providing less government funding for child welfare services to First Nations children on reserves than is provided to non-Indigenous children, was referred to the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal. The tribunal ruled in January 2016 that the Canadian government's failure to provide equitable and culturally based child welfare services to 165,000 First Nations children amounted to discrimination. The government has spent at least $5 million fighting the complaint and has not acted on that and three subsequent noncompliance orders. On August 25, 2017, the United Nations
Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination The International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) is a United Nations convention. A third -generation human rights instrument, the Convention commits its members to the elimination of racial discri ...
(CERD) recommended for Canada to end its underfunding of First Nations, Inuit and Métis child and family services; ensure that all children, on and off reserve, have access to all services available to other children in Canada, without discrimination; implement
Jordan's Principle Jordan's Principle is a child-first and needs-based principle used in public policy and administration in Canada to ensure that First Nations children living on and off reserve have equitable access to all government funded public services. It ho ...
fully to ensure access to services is not delayed or denied because of funding disputes between the federal, provincial and territorial governments; and address the root causes of displacement, such as poverty and poor housing, that disproportionately drive Indigenous children into foster care.


Notable "scoops"

Richard Cardinal, a
Métis The Métis ( ; Canadian ) are Indigenous peoples who inhabit Canada's three Prairie Provinces, as well as parts of British Columbia, the Northwest Territories, and the Northern United States. They have a shared history and culture which derives ...
child, was born in
Fort Chipewyan Fort Chipewyan , commonly referred to as Fort Chip, is a hamlet in northern Alberta, Canada, within the Regional Municipality (RM) of Wood Buffalo. It is located on the western tip of Lake Athabasca, adjacent to Wood Buffalo National Park, app ...
, Alberta. He entered the foster care system when he was four years old. In the care of Alberta Child Welfare, he had a total of 28 group care and foster placements, secured facilities and shelters. At 17, Richard hanged himself on June 26, 1984. A 1986 film made about his short life, '' Richard Cardinal: Cry from a Diary of a Métis Child'', was based on his personal diary and interviews with his brother Charlie and his foster parents. Sydney Dion is an aboriginal man from Manitoba who was adopted by a family in the United States in 1971. The CBC program ''
8th Fire ''8th Fire: Aboriginal Peoples, Canada & the Way Forward'' is a Canadian broadcast documentary series, which aired in 2012. Featuring television, radio and web broadcasting components, the series focused on the changing nature of Canada's relations ...
'' features his story about coming back to Canada. Dion saved his money so that he could find his family in Canada. When he arrived at the border, he was turned down: "they are aware that I was born here, but I am not a citizen here." He did not have a Canadian birth certificate, and his name had been changed. Therefore, he had no proof that he is a Canadian citizen. On his second try to get into Canada, he was successful. The border guard acknowledged that he was a minor when he was adopted and did not implicitly consent to becoming a United States resident and so allowed him to enter Canada without a passport. In 2011, Taber Gregory, who was baptized Henry Desjarlais, was an aboriginal man from Cold Lake Nation, Alberta, who became the first child placed in the United States as part of the Sixties Scoop to be recognized by Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission. In January 2015, via a civil class action suit served on the Federal Government of Canada, Wayne Snellgrove became the first child placed in the United States as part of the Sixties Scoop to be recognized by Canadian courts. ''
The StarPhoenix ''The StarPhoenix'' is a daily newspaper that serves Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada, and is a part of Postmedia Network. The ''StarPhoenix'' puts out six editions each week and publishes one weekly, ''Bridges''. It is also part of the canada.co ...
'' journalist Betty Ann Adam collaborated with filmmaker
Tasha Hubbard Tasha Hubbard is a Canadian First Nations/ Cree filmmaker and educator based in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Hubbard's credits include three National Film Board of Canada documentaries exploring Indigenous rights in Canada: '' Two Worlds Colliding'', ...
on '' Birth of a Family'', a
National Film Board of Canada The National Film Board of Canada (NFB; french: Office national du film du Canada (ONF)) is Canada's public film and digital media producer and distributor. An agency of the Government of Canada, the NFB produces and distributes documentary f ...
documentary about her own separation and reunification with three of her siblings. The film premiered at the 2017
Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival The Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival is the largest documentary festival in North America. The event takes place annually in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The 27th edition of the festival took place online throughout May and June ...
. Adam approached Hubbard to document her story at the urging of a commissioner who served on Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Nakuset, who is Cree from
La Ronge La Ronge is a northern town in the boreal forest of central Saskatchewan, Canada. Its location is approximately north of Prince Albert where Highway 2 becomes Highway 102. La Ronge lies on the western shore of Lac la Ronge, is adjacent ...
, Saskatchewan, was adopted by a Jewish family in Montreal when she was three. She is now the executive director of the Native Women's Shelter of Montréal and draws on her adoptee experience in her work to improve the lives of urban Aboriginals. She sits on the Steering Committee of the Montréal Urban Aboriginal Community Strategy Network. Nakuset produced and hosted the television series ''Indigenous Power'' and was voted "Woman of the Year 2014" by the Montreal Council of Women. Carol Rose GoldenEagle, was born, in 1963, in a religious hospital, to a First Nations woman who was an unmarried nurse, so Hospital authorities stripped her from her mother. She wrote "Bearskin Diary", a novel with a strong autobiographical component inspired by this episode of her life. Gordon Edwin Sanderson, a formerly unidentified Canadian murder victim who was found in a septic tank in 1977 at Lindbrook, Alberta. The investigation into his homicide is ongoing.


Ontario class action lawsuit

In 2009,
Beaverhouse First Nation Beaverhouse First Nation is an Indigenous first nation located on the banks Kirkland Lake in the Misema River system. After initially being excluded from the Treaty 9 agreement between Indigenous nations and Canada, the government of Canada offici ...
Chief Marcia Brown Martel filed a class action lawsuit in Ontario on behalf of Indigenous children affected by the Sixties Scoop. Her lawsuit, which claimed that she suffered emotional, physical, and sexual abuse after she was placed in the foster system as a child, was one of a series of class action lawsuits that had been launched in five provinces. On February 14, 2017, Superior Court Justice Edward Belobaba ruled in favour of the plaintiffs in the case known as ''Brown v. Canada (Attorney General)''. Justice Belobaba found that Canada had breached its common law duty of care to
take reasonable steps to prevent on-reserve Indian children in Ontario, who had been placed in the care of non-aboriginal foster or adoptive parents, from losing their aboriginal identity.
Justice Belobaba, in his decision, also acknowledged the impact of the Sixties Scoop on survivors:
The Sixties Scoop happened and great harm was done.... The uncontroverted evidence of the plaintiff's experts is that the loss of their Aboriginal identity left the children fundamentally disoriented, with a reduced ability to lead healthy and fulfilling lives. The loss of Aboriginal identity resulted in psychiatric disorders, substance abuse, unemployment, violence and numerous suicides.
Indigenous Affairs Minister Carolyn Bennett, in interviews after the outcome was announced, stated that Canada would not appeal the decision. On October 6, 2017, an $800 million settlement was announced. It will provide status First Nations and Inuit who were adopted out of their families and communities as part of the Sixties Scoop, with $25,000 to $50,000 in compensation, depending on the number of claimants who come forward. It will also establish a $50 million endowment for an Indigenous Healing Foundation. Non-status First Nations and Métis will not receive compensation under the settlement. Jeffery Wilson, the lead attorney for the plaintiffs, made this comment about the settlement:
Never before in history has a nation recognized, in this way, children's right to their cultural identities, and a government's responsibility to do everything in its power to protect the cultural identity of children in its care.
Hundreds of claims have been rejected, and can be appealed if more proof is found. As part of the Sixties Scoop, Debbie Paul was taken by a nun from the Canadian residential school she attended and placed with a family in the United States, where she attended one school year. Her claim for compensation was rejected with the words "unable to confirm that you were placed in long-term care with non-indigenous parents". After her claim was rejected, with the help of a journalist she travelled to the town in the United States where she had lived, and managed to obtain her school records which she had previously attempted to obtain without success, and which stated as guardian the name of one of the parents of the family she had been placed with. Obtaining the records was an emotional moment for her. It wasn't about the money; it was about being believed. Finally she had proof that her story was true. She was then in a position to file an appeal of her claim. Having a claim rejected adds an emotional burden on top of the original trauma from having been removed from one's family.


Similar social developments in other countries

In Australia, a similar policy, which is sometimes referred to as the
Stolen Generations The Stolen Generations (also known as Stolen Children) were the children of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander descent who were removed from their families by the Australian federal and state government agencies and church miss ...
, removed Aboriginal children from their families and placed them in orphanages, children's homes, or with non-Aboriginal foster parents. In the United States, according to the National Indian Child Welfare Association (NICWA), 25 to 35 percent of Native children nationwide were being removed from their families in 1978. Overarching federal legislation setting standards for child custody proceedings, the ''
Indian Child Welfare Act The Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 (ICWA) ((), codified at Indian Child Welfare Act, (, )) is a United States federal law that governs jurisdiction over the removal of American Indian children from their families in custody, foster care and ...
'' (ICWA), was adopted that year. ICWA mandates that when a Native American child's parent dies, exhaustive efforts must be made to reunite the child with the surviving parent or other relatives. Children are placed with non-Native families only when a Native foster home, preferably one within the child's tribe, cannot be found. Also in the United States, a similar term,
Baby Scoop Era The Baby Scoop Era was a period in anglosphere history starting after the end of World War II and ending in the early 1970s, characterized by an increasing rate of pre-marital pregnancies over the preceding period, along with a higher rate of newb ...
, refers to a period starting after the end of
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
and ending in 1972 that was characterized by an increased rate of premarital pregnancies, along with a higher rate of forced adoptions. In the 1950s, there was another targeted removal of children from their families and communities in Canada. The children of a fringe group of Russian
Doukhobors The Doukhobours or Dukhobors (russian: духоборы / духоборцы, dukhobory / dukhobortsy; ) are a Spiritual Christian ethnoreligious group of Russian origin. They are one of many non-Orthodox ethno-confessional faiths in Russia a ...
in British Columbia, called the
Freedomites The Freedomite movement consists of a split-off of the Doukhobors, a community of Spiritual Christians began a mass migration from Russia to Canada in 1898. The Freedomite movement first appeared in 1902 in Saskatchewan, and later in the Kootenay ...
or Sons of Freedom, were taken by Canadian authorities.


See also

*
Birth alert A birth alert or hospital alert is a practice in Canada, in which a social or health care worker notifies the staff of a hospital if they have concerns for the safety of an expected child based on their parents' history. This can include past insta ...
*
Cultural genocide Cultural genocide or cultural cleansing is a concept which was proposed by lawyer Raphael Lemkin in 1944 as a component of genocide. Though the precise definition of ''cultural genocide'' remains contested, the Armenian Genocide Museum defines ...


References


External links


Sixties Scoop Class Action Lawsuit

The Stolen Generation, the 60's Scoop


Justice and the Aboriginal People. The Aboriginal Justice Implementation Commission.
CBC article: "Birth of a Family"
{{Adopt 1960s in Canada Child welfare in Canada Indigenous child displacement in Canada Adoption history