‘Sixties Scoop’ class action lawsuit re-launched

A class action lawsuit against the Canadian government for the deprivation of cultural identity stemming from what many call the “Sixties Scoop” has been granted certification as a class action proceeding.
Nishnawbe Aski Nation (NAN) Deputy Grand Chief Goyce Kakegamic and Beaverhouse First Nation Chief Marcia Brown Martel are “thrilled” legal class action proceedings re-launched on July 15 against the Attorney General of Canada will proceed to the next stage of of the legal proceedings.
“The path to litigation has been long and tiring but we are overjoyed that the Government of Canada will finally be accountable for this devastating legacy, which was nothing short of cultural genocide,” said Kakegamic in a media release.
The lawsuit calls for financial compensation of $50,000 for each person who is a member of this class action lawsuit, and a declaration that the Government of Canada “breached its fiduciary obligation and duty of care to protect Aboriginal rights by delegating the task of child welfare to Ontario and by entering into an agreement with the province that systemically eradicated the Aboriginal culture, society, language, customs, traditions, and spirituality of the children.”
In Ontario, an estimated 16,000 Aboriginal children were forcibly removed from their parents between 1965 and 1985 by child welfare agencies and placed into mostly non-Aboriginal homes far from their communities.
Brown Martel, who was removed from her home when she was four years old and adopted by Texan parents, and another surviror launched a lawsuit in February 2009 against the Attorney General of Canada under the Class Proceedings Act. In May 2010, a judge conditionally granted a motion to certify the action as a class proceeding but this was overturned in December 2011 when the Superior Court of Justice ruled that conditional certification of a class action proceeding should not have been granted.
Kakegamic said the 2011 decision was likely a result of the Canadian government refusing to acknowledge that the Sixties Scoop was part of its “assimilation policy” against Aboriginal people.
“I assume they don’t want to go into the same procedure and compensation that goes along with it that went into the residential school,” Kakegamic said, referring to the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement.
Kakegamic said while most residential school survivors – himself included – were able to return home during the summer months, many Sixties Scoop survivors have not even found their original families.
“These poor kids, they only had one-way ticket out,” he said. “There’s (many) stories about residential school that we know already. But these (Sixties Scoop) kids have their own stories and they’re emerging.”
Kakegamic said the practice of the Sixities Scoop is part of an attempted culture genocide of First Nations people that was “purposely and systematically undertaken by Canada and the province.”
Kakegamic referred to a line by Judge Edwin C. Kimelman, who chaired a Manitoba review committee on the Sixties Scoop in the mid-1980’s, where he said: “Unequivocally...cultural genocide has been taking place in a systematic, routine manner.”
Kakegamic hopes the courts allow the class action lawsuit to proceed for the benefit of the Sixties Scoop survivors.
“I hope that the government and the court will do the right thing and allow the survivors to begin the healing process,” he said.
A website (www.sixtiesscoopclaim.ca) has been established to help First Nations register and obtain more information on the class action proceedings.