Indigenous leaders in Manitoba are now calling on the federal government to begin the process of conducting a national inquiry into the Sixties Scoop, because they say those who were affected now deserve answers, and deserve the truth about why so many Indigenous children were taken from their families and their homes over approximately three decades.
The Sixties Scoop in Canada was a period in which policies were enacted in the country that allowed the child welfare system to take large numbers of Indigenous children from their families, and place them into homes with predominantly non-Indigenous families.
It is estimated that between the 1950s and the 1980s as many as 20,000 Indigenous children in Canada were taken from their families, and fostered or adopted out.
On Nov. 1, Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak (MKO) Grand Chief Garrison Settee and Southern Chiefs' Organization (SCO) Grand Chief Jerry Daniels joined representatives from the Sixties Scoop Legacy of Canada organization at a press conference in Winnipeg, and asked that a national inquiry be conducted into both the causes and the effects of the Sixties Scoop.
“This is federal legislation and policy that damaged a lot of children, and I think an inquiry is needed,” Settee said.
“Much similar to the residential school experience, this is a government-sanctioned policy that encouraged and promoted the ideas of taking Indigenous children, and thinking that it was helping them, only to find out years later that this caused devastation and trauma to these children, and we need answers.
“The Sixties Scoop survivors need answers, and the parents need answers of what really happened and why it happened.”
Settee added a national inquiry into the Sixties Scoop is necessary because he believes many of the same mistakes that have been made for years when governments in this country have dealt with Indigenous children and families are still being made today.
“We’re here as SCO and MKO to insure that this does not continue to happen, because it is still happening, it is still happening to our children and we cannot stand by any longer to allow policies that allow Indigenous children to be removed from their communities, and their culture, and their language, and their identity,” Daniels said.
“This must stop and it will stop.”
Daniels added that any inquiry must focus on the stories and testimonies of those who were directly affected by the Sixties Scoop.
“We need to examine and document the truth of survivors, and their stories need to be told,” he said.
SCO and MKO said Nov. 1 they are also asking for the release of any records held by state or church-run entities regarding the Sixties Scoop in order to “expedite the process of bringing families back together, and to bring some closure.”
— Dave Baxter is a Local Journalism Initiative reporter who works out of the Winnipeg Sun. The Local Journalism Initiative is funded by the government of Canada.
