On Friday, the Government of Canada and the plaintiffs in the Sixties Scoop class action announced that they have reached an Agreement-in-Principle to resolve the Sixties Scoop litigation.
Earlier this year, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice ruled 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 (Attorney General), 2017 ONSC 251 at para 85).
The Agreement-in-Principle includes a compensation fund for survivors and funding for the creation of a Foundation to provide communities and individuals access to education, healing and wellness, and commemoration activities. The Foundation will also work towards preserving and revitalizing Indigenous languages and cultures.
You can find more about the Agreement-in-Principle, including, Chief Marcia Brown Martel’s response, on the Sixties Scoop Class Action website and Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada’s press release.
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)