Wall rejects FSIN request for provincial payout over ’60s Scoop
Premier Brad Wall says the province has not made a decision, “but the short answer is no,” regarding a Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations (FSIN) request for financial compensation for Saskatchewan’s role in the ’60s Scoop.
Reports suggest the FSIN is requesting money — anywhere between $200 million and $400 million — tied to an apology from the province for the ’60s Scoop.
From 1966 to 1975 in Saskatchewan, First Nation and Metis children were removed from their families without consent and adopted into non-Indigenous families. Often, the parents were never told where their children were placed. Families were torn apart, and Indigenous children were raised without their culture.
In 2015, the Saskatchewan Party government made a commitment to formally apologize, but doing so has been delayed.
Asked about the delay again Wednesday, Wall said: “I respect the fact that they’ve now added an ask for money, or financial commitment from the government, but we haven’t made a decision.”
With a $1.2-billion deficit posted in March, offering a large payout is likely not feasible for the province.
Wall said offering compensation is “not where we started with the apology” and doing so now is “not something the government is going to be doing, but we would still like to go ahead with (the apology).”
He added, “you can have an apology without money.”
In October, the federal government announced it will pay up to $750 million to Sixties Scoop victims. The agreement is aimed at compensating eligible survivors, which breaks down to between $25,000 and $50,000 per victim.
The FSIN didn’t respond to requests for comment, but Chief Bobby Cameron told MBC last month that, “It’s nice to get an apology, no doubt about it — we acknowledge it, but there has to be some substance to the apology.”
He said then that he would be seeking the same, or at least half, of what the federal government promised.
“You are already in a deficit, you might as well fix the wrongs while you are there,” he said.
Robert Doucette, a former president of the Metis NationSaskatchewan, named the federal government in a recently launched human rights complaint regarding the Ottawa payout.
He argues the government discriminated against Metis survivors of the Sixties Scoop when it left them out of the $800-million settlement agreement.
“Once again, the federal government has failed to defend the rights of one of the Indigenous peoples of this country, betrayed the trust of my family,” and other Metis Sixties Scoop survivors, he wrote in his complaint.
He wants Prime Minister Justin Trudeau “to state that he believes the Metis have outstanding Aboriginal title and rights, that the Canadian government is going to affirm, respect and defend them, just like they do with everybody else in this country,” Doucette said.