Five indigenous leaders have written an open letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau urging him to apologize for the ’60s Scoop and to settle a lawsuit filed in Ontario, which they said has been repeatedly delayed by the federal government.
There are a handful of lawsuits across the country over the ’60s Scoop, including the one in Ontario, which has been before the courts since 2009 and seeks $85,000 for each affected person. A class-action lawsuit filed in Saskatchewan seeks unspecified damages for everything from loss of cultural identity to sexual and physical abuse.
“We are writing to you because you have publicly stated that Canada has a sacred and legal obligation to First Nations, Metis, and Inuit peoples,” reads the letter signed by leaders including former Assembly of First Nations national chief Phil Fontaine.
However, Indigenous Affairs Minister Carolyn Bennett said she would like to find a solution to legal cases over the Scoop, which saw thousands of aboriginal children taken from their homes by child-welfare services and placed with non-aboriginal families between the 1960s and 1980s.
We … would like to get things out of court and to a table where we can make those kinds of agreements together, as a way forward,” Bennett told reporters in Winnipeg on Aug. 17.
Lawyer Tony Merchant, who is behind the class-action lawsuit in Saskatchewan, said he welcomes Bennett’s offer to discuss the issue outside of court. But he said the court action has been necessary.
“Government is always saying ‘take it out of the court,’ but they are only coming forward and even talking about settling as a result of the work that … lawyers have been doing.”
The Liberal government has made for a “better political climate” for indigenous people since being elected last year, Merchant said.
“But governments still go very slowly, and the people handling things are still lawyers in the department of justice and they don’t change particularly simply because there are different people politically in charge.”
The former Conservative government tried to overturn the decision to certify the Saskatchewan class-action suit, but lost its appeal in 2014.
From The Canadian Press
