Author Topic: The 60s Scoop Verdict  (Read 1063 times)

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Offline Peter F

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Re: The 60s Scoop Verdict
« Reply #15 on: February 16, 2017, 02:37:35 am »
Again, people are missing the point of the court case referenced in the OP.  The case was not about the actual scooping.

As the judge says in the decision :
Quote
[
(8)...The court is not being asked to point fingers or lay blame. The court is
not being asked to decide whether the Sixties Scoop was the result of a well-intentioned
governmental initiative implemented in good faith and informed by the norms and values
of the day, or was, as some maintain, state-sanctioned “culture/identity genocide”10 that
was driven by racial prejudice to “take the savage out of the Indian children.” 11 This is a
debate that is best left to historians and, perhaps, to truth and reconciliation commissions.

(9) The issue before this court is narrower and more focused. The question is whether
Canada can be found liable in law for the class members’ loss of aboriginal identity after
they were placed in non-aboriginal foster and adoptive homes.

The children were members of the band - By Law, no less.  The government does not get to recind Natve status by fiat, which is what was, in effect, done with the scoop.   At the same time, the government claimed, truthfully and in good faith- way back in 1965, that they were holding all monies due the child, by virtue of that child being a registered band member, in trust until that child reached the age of majority and claimed what was due them. Not only that, but the children were entitled to the education benefit granted to band members by the government.    Very decent of them, but then they refused to let the band leadership know where the effected children were and also refused to inform the adoptive/foster parents themselves of the childs entitlements, nor did they deign to inform the actual beneficiary child. That was the what the scooped children were to get - no matter the cultural milieu in which they found themselves.  They never got those things and, by admission of the Government they should have got those things - so they sued the government for those things.

 Damages have yet to be figured out. The court did not address damages. But, now that the judge determined that the government failed in its Duty to the children involved, another trial will take place to figure that out.





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