10 years after apology, '60s Scoop survivors call for support beyond 'grossly inadequate' payout
First Nation, Métis, Inuit children taken from families 'have often been forgotten about': Manitoba advocate
Survivors of an infamous Canadian campaign to take Indigenous children from their families are underscoring the need for more action on the 10-year anniversary of the Manitoba's government formal apology for its role.
Lorraine Sinclair and Cindy Munro are grateful they reunited. The sisters say they're from a family of 11 children — nine of whom, including them, were separated and adopted out during the Sixties Scoop.
"We're learning about each other. Our other extended family and our other brothers and sisters, we don't really know them," said Munro. "I don't know who they are. That's not fair — that's not fair to my children, my grandchildren, my siblings."
The sisters were among a group of survivors and supporters at an event at St. John's Park in north Winnipeg on Wednesday to mark a decade since then premier Greg Selinger apologized to families caught in the Sixties Scoop.
The once legal and systematic practice removed thousands of First Nation, Métis and Inuit children from their birth families from the late 1950s into the 1980s. Most were adopted out to non-Indigenous families in Canada and abroad.
Coleen Rajotte, an advocate for Sixties Scoop survivors, said the 2015 apology was an important part of reconciliation but doesn't go far enough.
"It recognizes that we were through genocide, we were taken away from our families and placed far away from our culture and language," she said.
"It's now 2025, and we're asking the federal government and provincial government: what has really been done for us?"
The federal government announced a $800-million settlement for survivors in 2017, though some waited years for payments due to various delays. Over 34,000 claims were submitted by the 2019 deadline.
The sum eventually doled out to those deemed eligible amounted to about $25,000 per survivor.
Rajotte, who served on a Manitoba committee that asked for the 2015 apology, campaigned against that amount. She calls it "pathetic" and "grossly inadequate" compared to similar settlements reached for residential school and day school survivors.
"Not that money is going to fix everything, but we really feel like Sixties Scoop survivors have often been forgotten about," she said. "We don't really have the strong political voices that we need to move our issues forward."
Rajotte said beyond inadequate financial restitution, there are also issues that remain in terms of repatriating Canadian-born survivors that were adopted out internationally.
"Many of our survivors are still out in this world somewhere — Europe, United States, New Zealand, Australia," she said.
"Our children were placed far away, and we don't even know how many more of our Sixties Scoop survivors are still out there."
WATCH | Premier Greg Selinger apologizes for Sixties Scoop in 2015:
Sinclair and Munro say two of their siblings have died. One of their sisters remains in a locked mental health institution in Minnesota, and they want help repatriating her.
"I want a family picture. I don't know what that is," said Sinclair.
Late last month, advocates convened a group of survivors at Anish Healing Centre, which supports Sixties Scoop survivors, to ask them for input on what more needs to be done to support them.
Rajotte said the group penned a letter with recommended supports that they sent to Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew's office. They're hoping to meet with him.
Among other recommendations, Rajotte would like to see governments fund the creation of a centre devoted to helping survivors seek guidance should they wish to repatriate, and to help them access financial and mental health supports for all survivors.
"I stand here as a proud Cree woman who has gone through her own healing journey," said Rajotte. "I feel blessed that we have a voice and I am using our voice today to say more has to be done."
Manitoba Families Minister Nahanni Fontaine said she regularly meets with survivors and that the province recognizes the pain and harm caused by the Sixties Scoop.
Fontaine said she attended an Anish Healing Centre gathering along with a support team tasked with building relationships and connecting survivors to adoption record services.
In April, the province hired its first employee dedicated to helping Sixties Scoop survivors access services available to adoptees and former children in care, she said.
"Our government is on the path of jurisdiction, restoring the care of children and families to their nations back where they rightfully and inherently belong," Fontaine said in a statement. "We know kids do best when they are with their families in their communities, and on their lands, connected to their culture, something that was lost during the Sixties Scoop."
CBC News requested comment from the federal government. A spokesperson said Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada was unable to provide a statement Wednesday.
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With files from Zubina Ahmed