Aboriginal children of “60’s Scoop” sue Ottawa for compensation
- Fraser Needham | February 16, 2015
A group of Aboriginal people is suing the federal government for what they say was “cultural genocide” suffered at the hands of adopted white families.
The approximately 1,100 adoptees were part of what is now commonly known as the “60’s Scoop” in which as many as 20,000 Aboriginal children were taken from their biological families by government social services and placed with non-Aboriginal parents.
The process lasted into the 1980’s.
The adoptees in the Saskatchewan class action suit are being represented by Merchant Law Group.
Tony Merchant says the official name of the program was Adopt Indian Métis or AIM.
He says the program was similar to Indian residential schools in that it sought to strip the children of all traditional culture and fully assimilate them into white society.
“The government program was ‘we’ll take red babies and turn them into white adults,’” he says. “Red on the outside and white on the inside. And that was the same plan and the same justification in their minds of Indian residential schools.”
Merchant adds one of the most disturbing things about the “60’s Scoop” is the number of children who were removed and taken thousands of miles away from their communities and placed in homes throughout the United States.
“Most of these children in the 60’s and 70’s – children and babies – were adopted into the United States. Over time, I’ve been amazed at the numbers of people who talk to me from the United States. I had somebody call me yesterday from Florida.”
He says aside from the forced cultural assimilation, many of the children also suffered physical and sexual abuse.
“In killing the culture of the child, there was a very high incidence of physical abuse and a very high incidence of sexual abuse. So, for many of these people in their teens and later years – eight, nine, 10 – they were subjected to a lot of wrong doing for which they’re entitled compensation.”
Merchant says yet other Aboriginal children were used as free workers in adopted families or what he calls “indentured slaves.”
Although a specific amount in damages is not named in the class action suit, Merchant says compensation could range from $20,000 in terms of cultural abuse to $1 million for sexual abuse.
If the suit is certified by a judge, he says it could be settled in as soon as two years.