Sixties Scoop survivors meet with province
Indigenous group meets with Sask. government ministers
A group of Sixties Scoop survivors is optimistic about the road to an apology after a meeting with the provincial government.
The recently formed Sixties Scoop Indigenous Society of Saskatchewan (SSISS) sat down with members of government on Thursday to share their personal stories of survival and discuss what needs to happen before a meaningful apology can be made.
“I feel really positive,” said Melissa Parkyn, an SSISS co-chair. “This is a chance for us to finally speak out and tell our stories.”
Deputy Premier Gord Wyant and Minister of First Nations, Metis and Northern Affairs Warren Kaeding met with the group for over an hour at the Saskatchewan Legislative Building in Regina, listening and responding in ways Parkyn described as genuine and heartfelt.
Parkyn and fellow survivors talked about the need for victims of the Sixties Scoop to be able to tell their stories in order to begin the healing process and help educate the public on the effects on survivors and their families.
“You can’t apologize for something (if ) you don’t know what you’re apologizing for,” said Rod Belanger, an SSISS board member from Regina who attended the meeting. “There needs to be a creation of more awareness of what actually took place.”
The group intend to travel across Saskatchewan and gather stories from survivors. Taking their cue from a similar group in Alberta, they hope a government representative or two can join them.
“They ’re really in a good working relationship,” said Parkyn. “They have two people from their government going around with them when they do their engagement sessions. We explained that to this government and they really want to try something like that with us too.”
Kaeding described the meeting as emotional and powerful, in an interview with MBC on Thursday. When asked if an apology is in this government’s future, his answer was “unequivocally yes.”
But he said there was no immediate request from the group for an apology; instead, group members indicated the need for more groundwork in order to move forward.
“We will provide an apology once we get a good understanding of
You can’t apologize for something (if) you don’t know what you’re apologizing for.
what we need to put in that apology and get input from the survivor group as to what they would like to see in the apology,” said Kaeding.
Kaeding says both groups left the meeting with a couple of “goforward” points and research to be done. He said the government has some other entities they need to talk to and both groups agreed to meet again in early May.
Parkyn hopes the process leads to an apology within a year’s time, but Belanger said it could take longer, especially when considering how long the process was for residential school survivors.
What matters even more, said Belanger, are the actions the government takes after the apology has been made.
“With the Sixties Scoop, it’s not just that it happened, it’s still going on,” he said. “There’s probably more children in care than there ever was during the apprehension eras. They might be apologizing to us, but there needs to be some things corrected deep within our systems when it comes down to our children.”