The Ontario Superior Court of Justice issued its decision this morning (February 14, 2017) in the Ontario Sixties Scoop class action.
The court held that the Federal Crown owed and breached a “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” (Brown v Canada, 2017 ONSC 251, at para 85).
The full court decision is available on The Globe and Mail website and will be available on CanLII later this week.
An archived stream of the ceremonial sharing of the decision at the Native Child and Family Services of Toronto with the representative plaintiff Chief Marcia Martel is available for viewing here.
On February 1, 2017 the Federal Government announced that it would seek to negotiate a national settlement to the “Sixties Scoop litigation’. The full press release can be found on the Government of Canada’s website.
For more background information on the Sixties Scoop, below are a few items in UVic Libraries’ collection:
- A History of Adoption Law in Ontario, 1921 – 2015 (Chapter 9: Indigenous Children and Adoption) – Lori Chambers. Call number: KEO228 C53 2016 (Law Library)
- A Generation Removed : The Fostering and Adoption of Indigenous Children in the Postwar World (Chapter 6: The Indigenous Child Welfare Crisis in Canada)- Margaret Jacobs. Call number: HV875.6 J33 2014 (McPherson Library)
- Moving Toward Positive Systems of Child and Family Welfare (Chapter 3: Aboriginal Child Welfare) – eds. Gary Cameron, Nick Coady, and Gerald R. Adams. Online
- A literature review and annotated bibliography on aspects of Aboriginal child welfare in Canada
– Marlyn Bennett, Cindy Blackstock and Richard De La Ronde. Online.
- Stolen from our Embrace : The Abduction of First Nations Children and the Restoration of Aboriginal Communities – Suzanne Fournier and Ernie Crey. Call number: E78 C2 F675 (McPherson Library)
- Four Decades of Child Welfare Services to Native Indians in Ontario: A Contemporary Attempt to Understand the ‘Sixties Scoop’ in Historical, Socioeconomic and Political Perspective – Joyce Barbara Timpson. Online
- Governing Childhood (Chapter V: Therapies of Freedom: The Colonization of Aboriginal Childhood) – Anne McGillivray. Call Number: HQ789 G658 (McPherson Library)
- Richard Cardinal : Cry from a Diary of a Métis Child – National Film of Canada. Streaming video.
- Native Children and the Child Welfare System – Patrick Johnston. Call number: E78 C2 J63 (Law Library)
- No Quiet Place : Final Report Review Committee on Indian and Metis Adoptions and Placements – Edwin C Kimelman. Call Number: KF8210 C45 M36 1985 (Law Library)