Sixties Scoop survivors search for answers at settlement hearing
Sessions an opportunity to speak on proposed $800M settlement
Glenda Burley said she hadn’t been to Saskatchewan in the 50 years since she was taken as a child in the Sixties Scoop.
Burley and her younger sister, Joanne Munroe, flew from New Brunswick back to the province of their birth to be part of the hearings on the federal government’s Sixties Scoop settlement offer.
“It’s like coming back home for me,” Burley said.
The federal government’s settlement offer is for $800 million: $750 million to be paid out to survivors and their families, and $50 million to go to a “healing foundation” to assist survivors. An additional $75 million was allocated to pay legal fees for all claimants.
The hearings, held at a downtown hotel beginning on Thursday, were meant to give survivors and advocates a chance to comment on — and object to — the offer.
Any survivor who wished to make a statement would be given three minutes during the hearing to do so. Some survivors not in Saskatoon would also have the opportunity to speak through video calling.
Burley, 56, and Munroe, 54, were among more than 100 attendees who crowded into the second floor of the hotel waiting for the hearings to begin.
The sisters were adopted and taken from Saskatchewan in the mid-1960s. After finding an article from the Adopt Indian Metis (AIM) program instituted in the ’60s among their adopted father’s belongings about a year ago, they realized their adoption was part of the scoop.
They said returning to Saskatchewan and connecting with family they never knew has made them realize what they’ve missed.
“We feel like we’re aliens. We feel like we’ve come to an alien world,” Munroe said.
“This is our world, where we came from. But we were denied it,” Burley added.
The sisters are Metis, and one of the major objections to the settlement has been the exclusion of Metis people. They said they weren’t sure if they would speak in the hearings, but wanted “acknowledgment” of what the government did to them.
In his opening statements, Judge Michel Shore acknowledged that the hearings are to determine if the settlement is in the “best interest” of everyone involved. But Shore also insisted that everyone who wished to speak would get the opportunity.
“We want to hear your objections, which are extremely important, because that is what will bring about healing and reconciliation across the country,” Shore said.
Peter Van Name, 46, came all the way from Los Angeles to attend the hearings. A Sixties Scoop survivor, Van Name said he objects to the settlement because he thinks the offer sets aside too much for legal fees and not enough for survivors.
“(The compensation) is nothing. It’s kind of more of a slap in the face,” Van Name said. “I want the judge to listen (to the survivors).”
For Burley and Munroe, being at the hearings is about a show of solidarity for a heritage that, until recently, they were never able to be part of.
“This is very important to us, and to our people,” Burley said.
“Now we have a people,” Munroe said.