The 60s Scoop is about the forced breakup of thousands of families and the abandonment many suffered because the Canadian government thought it had another plan to try to "melt Aboriginals into the melting pot of American society."
OTTAWA, ON-If you were born in Canada before 1980, you will most likely remember what's now become known as "The Sixties Scoop." This is when thousands of First Nations babies and children were adopted out to non-Native families. These victims are now adults and from all accounts, many if not all, bear emotional scars from this major event in Canadian history. They now want the Government of Canada to apologize as they have done to former students of Residential Schools.
Coleen Rajotte, a Winnipeg filmmaker, is one of them who was taken from her family and placed in the home of strangers and she has never forgotten. She was taken from her Cree home in Saskatchewan when she was three months old and given to a non-Native Manitoba family to raise.
In recalling what it was like to be uprooted from all that was familiar, Rajotte talks about the painful reality of 'Lost Birthdays, Christmas, and, of course, her birth family. To her it was like getting hit by a ton of bricks.
"I was physically sick for days after that," she told Alexandra Paul, a reporter for the Winnipeg Free Press.
Marlene Orgeron, 40, remembers being taken out of her home when she was only four and sent to live with strangers in New Orleans. She eventually moved back to Manitoba and raised a family in Brandon, but says the painful memories never go away.
Two of Orgeron's brothers were also "scooped up" as part of the Scoop. One is in a Louisiana prison where he is halfway through serving a 20-year sentence for manslaughter. The other brother has refused to return to Canada.
According to the FREE PRESS, Joseph Maud, 53, remembers the day he and his brother escaped from "the farm" in Alonsa, in north-central Manitoba. "He wants to tell his grandchildren he loves them-as a father," but for the longest time, "he couldn't hug his own children." Maud is now a councilor on the Skownan First Nation in the Interlake.
The Sixties Scoop happened when the provinces-primarily Ontario to British Columbia-employed social workers to remove thousands of Aboriginal kids from their communities and to transfer them to non-Aboriginal homes in Canada but also to parts of the United States.
According to the Canadian Press, almost 20,000 children were taken from their homes from the 1960s to the 1980s and were adopted by non-Aboriginal middle-class families.
While it is true that many of those taken did grow up in good homes with loving parents, it is also true that they were stripped of their history, language, and Native culture and placed in homes whose culture and in some cases languages were strange to them.
"We've lost a lot," stated Rajotte, "We've lost our culture, we've lost our language, and we've lost our connection to our home communities," she said.
These survivors are looking for an apology and some form of compensation.
"To make this issue more broadly recognized, more broadly respected is something that has to be done," stated the Honorable Eric Robinson, Manitoba's Aboriginal Affairs Minister. "Governments have to be held accountable."
