Today it was announced by the Federal Government of Canada that survivors of "the 60's Scoop" would be compensated between $25,000 and $50,000 each. This payment is to settle the 16 different class action lawsuits that have been winding their way through Canadian courts for a decade. I'm involved in one of these suits. I'm a 60's scoop survivor.
During the 1960s the Canadian Government's plan to deal with the "Indian Problem" in Canada was to remove large numbers of infants and children from their homes and family and connection to their community and land, and place them in non-indigenous homes where they could be assimilated more completely into Western Culture. Some of the children that this happened to had good experiences. Many did not.
I don't want to delve into my particular story too much. I am grateful for the opportunities that I got for education and advancement as a child in my non-native home. But I have always been an outsider in that family and always will be. Aside from my dad, there isn't a single member of my adopted family that bothers to stay in touch with me or my children. We have effectively been "unadopted" by these people.
My biological mother died in 1975. I never got to meet her as an adult returning home. She never told anybody who my father was. So there's two dead-ends for me there. I do have an older half sister and a younger half brother... and we sort of stay in touch. But we are not close.
I worked very very hard to learn about the culture of my people... the Coast Salish hul'qumi'num speaking Indigenous peoples. I started a currency with my husband as a way to finance Hul'qumi'num language classes with a fluent teacher for any and all who wished to learn. We managed to produce 17 lessons before he passed away. Learning my language and culture is something that has been very important to me over the past 20 years. Connecting with my biological and cultural heritage
So I'm glad of the settlement because it will allow me to do more to keep working on those opportunities to connect with my community and keep learning my language.
I went to a party about 20 yrs ago for a film I was working on and someone had brought a native date. He found out I was there and started asking me a lot of questions about being native which I thought was weird... he was 100% Indian. I asked him if he was raised in the city and he told me he was raised in the suburbs.
He explained he was adopted out in early eighties and was working up the courage to contact his old reserve and see if his parents want to meet him.
It was a good talk and I explained he should just to find out his past a bit more. But it was a major starting point in his life.
I'm glad this point had been reached.
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