SIXTIES Scoop

ADAM NORTH PEIGAN HEARTENED BY ONTARIO COURT DECISION

Former Piikani councillor part of group working to register a class action lawsuit —

By now, most Canadians know how residential schools impacted First Nations children for generation after generation. Now, following a landmark court decision in Ontario, non-Indigenous Canadians will learn more about the “Sixties Scoop.” Adam North Peigan, one of its victims, is working on that.

During the 1960s, he explains, provincially employed social workers arbitrarily took thousands of Indigenous boys and girls away from their parents and sent them to Caucasian families where they became foster children. North Peigan was shuffled through a series of homes and shelters.

“This has been an issue I have had to deal with my entire life,” he says. “When I think back to those days, I can’t imagine the feelings that I had to endure.”

North Peigan — who was later elected to the Piikani Nation’s band council — now lives in Edmonton. He and others there are working to register a class action lawsuit against the federal government, which allowed the “Scoop” to happen.

He’s heartened by an Ontario superior court’s recent decision that found the Canadian government breached its duty of care towards the children taken from their families. Damages will be awarded in the Ontario suit, which sought more than $1 billion for more than 16,000 children affected.

A spokesperson for the federal government said it will not challenge the ruling, but it’s not yet determined how much compensation will be paid.

“This a landmark ruling and will affect the goforward calls of action lawsuits across Canada,” North Peigan says.

Also responding to the court decision, Alberta’s minister of Indigenous relations said the New Democratic Party government will “continue to work with the indigenous community on issues of reconciliation.”

“We recognize the historical trauma caused to indigenous peoples through being separated from family members and losing their cultural connections,” said cabinet minister Richard Feehan.

North Peigan says what impact that will have on class-action cases already underway across Canada is uncertain. In Alberta, he says between 15,000 and 20,000 “Scoop” survivors are part of the process.

Meanwhile he’s hoping for a formal apology from Premier Rachel Notley, similar to one issued by Manitoba’s premier several years ago. While the children were removed by provincial employees many years ago, provincial governments can still be held responsible.

“The federal government and the provincial governments really need to share responsibility for what we had to endure,” North Peigan says.

For him, separation from his family meant a loss of identity, feelings of abandonment, “not feeling that I could trust anyone.”

It’s also distanced him from some of the Piikani elders, because he never learned to speak Blackfoot.