How do we put a price on the horrors of the Sixties Scoop?

What’s the difference between God and a social worker? God doesn’t think he’s a social worker.

Social workers played God during the 1960s and continue to do so now in removing First Nations and Métis children from their homes and placing them in white foster homes.

This travesty is now one more case of the chickens coming home to roost in Indian country. Decades of damage have been done to our people and now it’s become unravelled for all to see.

First came the boarding schools that were used to indoctrinate First Nations children and remove them from their homes for most of the year. The result was that when children reached 16 years of age they refused to go back and were left with a very rudimentary education that was of little or no use.

Children who were products of the boarding school had to raise their own children with little knowledge of proper parenting because of the artificial and emotionally spartan environment of the boarding school.

These parents had to struggle with their demons of physical and sexual abuse as well as the lateral violence that was rampant among their peers. How were they expected to be able to raise a family under those conditions?

The resulting family dysfunction, coupled with alcoholism and substance abuse, took its toll, and rather than go to the root of the problem the federal and provincial governments only made it worse by seizing children and further breaking up the fabric of the community.

The battle of colonialism placed the children on the front lines and the results have been shameful and disastrous.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission was established as a part of the residential school settlement. The commissioners travelled across the country hearing stories and developing a final report that included a list of calls to action.

The very first call to action is directed to the welfare of children. This is a telling statement of where our priorities must lie.

Now the federal government has made an offer to the survivors of the Sixties Scoop, which was approved by a federal court judge in Saskatoon on Friday. The offer is for $750 million in compensation, $50 million for a healing foundation and an additional $75 million to pay legal fees.

This is a more difficult situation for adjudication than the compensation paid to the residential school survivors. The stories of the survivors range from extreme pain and suffering to a home that provided both love and safety.

In some cases where there was physical and sexual abuse, no amount of money can compensate for the memories that have led to a life of sorrow and pain.

I have been told stories of horrific sexual abuse and virtual slavery of children taken in on farms. These individuals’ lives have been scarred forever.

On the other hand, many of the children were adopted into loving homes and have had a degree of success in life. But for all remains the gap that exists between them and their biological families and their culture.

The trip home is difficult for many. When they finally find their home, they may encounter the grave of one or both parents. In his award-winning documentary Foster Child, Alberta filmmaker Gil Cardinal finds his mother’s grave in the Northwest Territories and we are left with the poignant shot of him leaving flowers on her grave.

It’s a scene that has played out over and over as the survivors search for their parents.

The other outcome for many has been the gap that exists between the survivors and their families. They grew up in a completely different culture. Some were sent to the United States, Europe and even Australia. Canada trafficked in Aboriginal babies, to our country’s shame.

Our Métis brothers and sisters fared no better and they were scooped and treated in the same manner. You can’t tell a Métis baby from a First Nations baby, so they deserve a part of the compensation package as well.

I recall speaking to a young woman who had been scooped and lost contact with her family. When she found her family, she found it very hard to fit in and return to a normal life.

“I was too white to be brown and too brown to be white,” she told me.

That sums up the damage done by forced adoptions.

Doug Cuthand is a columnist with the Saskatoon StarPhoenix.