Sixties Scoop information sessions held this week
Full-day event offers help with claim form and personal money management
SASKATOON Jonathon Bird has a few ideas about how the $25,000 to $50,000 he may receive in Sixties Scoop settlement money could help him reset his life.
He’d like to learn how to better deal with his own trauma from growing up in foster care, separated from his birth family and community. He’d like to get help staying clean and sober, and get his learner’s permit to drive. He’d like to move from an apartment to a house, start his own restaurant, be financially independent.
“With that money, I could do a lot with that,” he said.
Bird, who visits the Saskatoon Indian and Metis Friendship Centre daily, was among the attendees at a daylong information session on Tuesday when representatives of the Quebec-based administrative group Collectiva explained the steps survivors must take to get their money from a classaction lawsuit.
The representatives will be at the Mamaweyatitan Centre in Regina all day Wednesday.
Under a settlement reached with the federal government, survivors could each receive between $25,000 and $50,000 in compensation for loss of cultural identity, depending on the overall number of eligible people. The settlement includes registered Indian and Inuit people, as well as people eligible to be registered Indians, who were made permanent wards and placed with non-indigenous foster or adoptive parents between 1951 and 1991.
They have until Aug. 30 to complete a claim form and send it to the claims administrator. Assistance is offered at the information sessions to fill out the forms.
Anyone who did not want to be held to the terms of the settlement had until the end of October 2018 to opt out.
Even if someone is unsure whether they were made a permanent ward, they should still fill out the claim form, said Dan Richard, an adviser at the information sessions.
“Not everyone’s going to remember their history from, say, 20, 30, 40 years ago … a lot of people don’t have the records,” he said.
With their consent, Collectiva will be able to gather that information on their behalf.
“What determines an Indigenous versus a non-indigenous home?” is a typical question that comes up, Richard said. “We just tell them we’ll have to see what the provincial records indicate … and if it doesn’t match what the people believe, there is a way to appeal.”
People are asked to provide as much of their background story as they can when they’re filling out their forms.
Help is also available online at six ties scoop settlement. info, or by calling 1-844-287-4270.
Richard advises anyone who feels unsure about filling out the form to do it anyway, to the best of their ability. Collectiva will contact them for further information if required.
“The last thing someone wants to do is just hold off and not do anything because they don’t know or they’re not sure if they’re eligible, and miss the (deadline), because if they miss the date there’s no chance.”
Claims will be reviewed and eligibility verified in the coming months. It’s estimated compensation will be paid out by the spring of 2020.
The information sessions will continue across the country until early April.
Richard said more than 200 people turned out for the session in Winnipeg on Jan. 24. As of that date, around 9,000 claims had been submitted. An estimated 20,000 to 30,000 claims are anticipated.
Afternoons at the information sessions offer pointers on personal money management.
Bird said he welcomes the help. He has seen relatives struggle to cope with the payouts they received from the residential schools settlement and “not really having a good, positive outcome with it,” he said.
The 36-year-old said he wants to write his own story. Originally from Montreal Lake, he grew up in a series of non-indigenous foster homes in Prince Albert. He finally ran away at the age of 16.
“I was bouncing from one foster home to another one to another one, because I wanted to be home with my family.”