The Sixties Scoop
Advocate reflects on walk for Aboriginal and Métis children 20 years later
BRANDON, Man. — Joseph Maud, a Sixties Scoop survivor, departed on foot from Brandon 20 years ago.
“Monday morning, the Brandon University student began a 10-day walk to Winnipeg to raise awareness of the estimated 5,000 Aboriginal and Métis children removed from their homes from the early 1960s to early 1980s,” The Brandon Sun reported in April 2000.
Maud visited the university recently to mark the 20-year anniversary of this walk, to bring additional awareness to the issue.
The term Sixties Scoop comes from the 1983 report Native Children and the Child Welfare System by Patrick Johnston, a researcher for the Canadian Council on Social Development, and refers to the mass removal of Aboriginal children from their families into the child welfare system, in most cases without the consent of their families or bands.
Maud is a member of Scownan First Nation and is active in economic development and conservation in both his home community and the Parkland region.
Alongside awareness, the 59-year-old said his other reason for the walk is that he needed to heal. He told the Sun in 2000 that life on the central Manitoba farm where he and his brother spent four years before fleeing were like slavery.
“We were doing men’s work but we were just boys. … We didn’t receive any love in the foster home. It was just work, work, work and a lot of broken promises,” he told the Sun at the time.
This week, he added that healing is a lifelong undertaking.
“I changed my life,” he said. “I fell into addictions. I’ve been clean and straight for 30 years. Myself and most of my siblings have helped ourselves in healing, together.”
Maud and seven siblings were taken from this family of nine children.
The greatest damage for Maud lay in his ability to love and demonstrate affection. That, along with addiction, led to a broken marriage. Saying ‘I love you’ seemed hollow. But, now, he’s a grandfather, and he can hug his grandkids.
“It’s getting there. It’s getting there, from deep down in my heart. It’s a little bit easier with the grandchildren. That’s the sad part, with my own children …”
His four years with his foster parents taught him to be a cold-hearted man.
“Today, I can cry at movies. I can tell my kids I love them. I can hug, and I mean it. Before, I had to be tough.”
For the first two days of his 2000 walk, approximately 100 people walked with him, as his eldest daughter Terrie followed in a vehicle. When he arrived at the Winnipeg perimeter, he was met with more support – including other survivors – for the final stretch. At the legislature, a rally was held and a few MLAs came out.
But it wasn’t until 2015 that then Manitoba premier Greg Selinger apologized to families and adult survivors for the Sixties Scoop. Then, in late 2017, the $875-million class action Sixties Scoop Settlement Agreement was reached. The settlement agreement includes a healing foundation, in development now.
On May 12, the Sixties Scoop Settlement web page reported that of 34,767 applications for individual payments, 12,551 are processed so far – far beyond the estimated 5,000 noted in the Sun’s 2000 article.
Nevertheless, Maud is disappointed at how long it took for the provincial and federal governments to take action.
“Two of my siblings passed on. They never got to hear the apology. They didn’t get compensation. It should have happened sooner,” Maud said.
“And, of course, there are others who have passed on.”
Apologies are important, he added.
“They just came and scooped up my family. Yet, other relatives wanted to keep myself and my siblings. Children’s aid just took us, without asking. My extended family were not asked. I have a relative – she’s since passed on – she was crying on the steps when the children’s aid worker picked up me and my brothers.
“She was crying. She was helpless. She wanted to keep me and my brothers. She never got to hear this apology. I still remember that day like it was yesterday, in August of ‘69, driving away and looking back and she’s on the step crying. I’m just nine years old. I have my siblings beside me, but we’re being taken by a strange person.”
Maud’s parents had separated and the children were living with relatives at the time, because Maud’s father was in Winnipeg upgrading his skills that summer.
Maud remains concerned there are still people out there who don’t know where they come from. That’s why he decided to revisit the location where he started his walk in 2000, and bring further attention to the matter.
There are Sixties Scoop survivors in the United States and Europe, Maud said. As an example, he attended a powwow in Albuquerque, New Mexico last year where he met a Canadian survivor who did not know that the federal government was compensating Indigenous children taken from their homes and communities, and fostered or adopted out. While many have reunited with their families, Maud is worried about those who have not had that opportunity.
“There needs to be more work done for awareness,” he said.