That $ 4,000 would be in addition to the $ 21,000 that group members received in 2020.
“It’s like they paid $ 25,000 to wipe out the Indians,” said Marcoux, who is the Interior Salish of the Ts’kw’aylaxw First Nation in Lillooet, BC.
During the so-called Sixties Scoop, people were removed from their communities, cultures and lifestyles and placed elsewhere in foster care or adoption arrangements. They are often relocated away from their communities of origin and many have experienced abuse and dangerous situations after moving.
“That [$4,000] “It was the straw that broke this camel’s back,” Marcoux told CTV News. “It’s like a slap in the face. It’s like an insult. I feel like there is no amount of money that will ever be enough to replace what we lost, but that’s just like further trauma, further abuse. They always do it to us. It will never end. “
As of March 2022, a total of 34,770 claims have been filed in the lawsuit and 20,167 have been approved and 10,662 rejected, according to the Collectiva site monitoring the proceedings.
The settlement amount, which Marcoux estimates based on 57 years of being away from her community, is $ 1.20 a day to be removed from her community and culture and forced to live more than 4,300 miles away.
After her mother was violently killed and her father convicted of her murder, Marcoux was adopted by a non-native military family who moved from Kamloops, BC to Longueuil, Que. where it originally came from. She, along with her siblings, were able to reunite with her family, including her father, who admitted what he did to her mother.
“We were some of the lucky ones to meet my father,” he said. “I met all my aunts and uncles. I met all my brothers. And we are very, very lucky to be accepted back into our community.”
Brenda Marcoux is one of the lucky survivors of the Scoop of the 60’s who managed to reconnect with her family in the community where she was born. SOURCE: Brenda Marcox
Many were not so lucky and some children moved far away from their communities.
Colleen Cardinal is a co-founder of the Sixties Scoop Network base support team. A sitemap shows how some people have moved away from their communities and moved as far as Denmark, the United Kingdom or Los Angeles.
“They didn’t just take us to the provinces. They took us all over the world,” Cardinal said. “So how do you get it back?”
Between 1951 and 1991, indigenous children were cared for and placed in non-indigenous families in what became known as “The Sixties Scoop”. The group claims that those affected by the program “suffered significant damage as a result of these practices – in particular the loss of their cultural identity,” according to the Collectiva website.
The settlement was agreed in 2018.
A map showing the distance Scoop survivors of the 1960s were forced to flee after being adopted by their communities.
‘GOOD’ SETTLEMENT?#
The cardinal was at the table when the federal government issued a settlement number based on the number of eligible victims and the loss of their culture.
“They think it was a good settlement. We do not think it is a good settlement, but we had to accept it and we were told that this was the best deal we could get for the culture loss that we do not face the sexual and physical abuse and trauma we experienced. “Not only is it a trigger for survivors to remember, but it was also a reminder of how little our lives were valued.”
He said those lucky enough to be reunited with their families often experience culture shock as they try to connect with people who have grown up with sometimes extremely different worldviews.
“It depends on where they were taken, how far they went and how assimilated they were,” Cardinal said. “They literally raised us and brainwashed us to be non-native … Sometimes reintegration is not successful and we are alienated from both our families … Some of us have never found our families.”
The cardinal said some people were in abusive situations and tried to escape the situation, get homeless or engage in criminal activities.
Many, he added, did not register or could not register in the class action settlement, as they could not access a computer, were imprisoned or did not hear about it.
“They would say, ‘We did what we could, but they did not,'” Cardinal said. “I met with the minister [Carolyn] Bennett said, “there are so many people who do not know about the settlement or have missed the deadline …” Many of these people live on the streets and experience extreme poverty, so these people were left out.
MONEY IS NOT EVERYTHING#
Marcoux said she did not know what the appropriate amount of compensation would be, but said paying $ 25,000 was not enough and one way to avoid real responsibility for the season.
“This is one of the terrible things they do and I do not know how they do it. I do not know how it was okay,” he said. “This seems like a dream to me. It seems that this can not be true.”
The cardinal would like first and foremost an apology from the federal government, such as those made by the provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta.
“Not just an apology, but for the government to ask for our forgiveness for what they did to our families. Not just us as survivors, but the families that were born and our next generations … Even our adoptive families.
The Cardinal wants more from the federal government than a small payment.
“I want some to be held accountable,” he said. “Whether it’s the federal government province, people participated in it and people knew it, and it’s literally trafficking indigenous children through the child welfare system.”
