Sixties scoop payments on verge of arriving
Second instalment planned as part of national class-action
Indigenous survivors of the Sixties Scoop should start receiving interim $21,000 payments within weeks as part of a settlement package, according to a Vancouver lawyer involved in the national class action case.
Doug Lennox of Klein Lawyers said it was important to move ahead to make sure more than 12,000 survivors start receiving individual payments.
“This is an important story,” he said.
“It’s part of a process of promoting reconciliation and righting a wrong in our history. I expect eligible claimants should start receiving payments in the coming weeks.”
The Sixties Scoop refers to Indigenous children who were taken from their parents and families by social service agencies across the country and placed in non-Indigenous families. The practice started in the 1950s and continued into the 1980s.
In December 2018, a national settlement for Sixties Scoop survivors was approved that involved $50 million for a Sixties Scoop Healing Foundation and up to $750 million in equal, individual payments.
The COVID-19 pandemic interrupted the process involved in approving and denying claims.
In late March, Federal Court approved $500 million for payments after 4,767 applicants had been rejected.
On Monday, Federal Court ordered interim payments of $21,000 to 12,551 eligible claimants.
Klein Lawyers is one of four law firms across the country that worked together to negotiate the settlement. According to information provided by the firm, the total number of claims submitted is 34,767; about 40 per cent are still being processed.
Lennox said the $21,000 figure was picked for two reasons: To make sure the settlement fund wouldn’t run out of money and that survivors would receive a second payment.
“It’s the first cheque,” he said. “There will be a second cheque.”
Lennox said the law firms haven’t kept track of the number of claimants by region so he couldn’t say how many in B.C. will be receiving compensation payments.
“This province experienced that history in a very real and hard way,” he said. “There have been a lot of claimants from British Columbia.”
The interim payment is unusual because the original intent was to pay everyone at the end of the class action, once the total number of successful claimants was known.
“We wanted to get some people some money now,” he said.
Lennox said the case started in Ontario in 2009. He’s been involved for five years.
“I’ve learned a great deal about Canadian history and from survivors about their strength and resilience,” he said.
Michael Sadler, a Sixties Scoop survivor, supports the interim payment.
“I think it’s the right thing to do,” said Sadler, a member of Kispiox First Nation in northwestern B.C.
He said it puts settlement money into the hands of people who need it and were likely struggling even before the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The payment obviously does not take away any of the anguish,” he said.
“It’s one part of the whole thing that people can put behind them. I think there’s still lots of healing and other work that needs to be done to help people deal with what happened with the Sixties Scoop.”