Work on drafting an apology to those affected by what has been termed as the “Sixties Scoop” has begun, with the second of six meeting held across the province taking place at Blue Quills University, last week.
The government of Alberta, along with the Sixties Scoop Indigenous Society of Alberta (SSISA), are hosting six information sessions with survivors of the sixties scoop, engaging in conversation in order to draft a meaningful apology to be publicly presented by Alberta Premier Rachel Notley.
The sixties scoop is the period of time from the 1960s through to the 1980s and early 1990s where child welfare authorities removed indigenous children from their homes and placed them in foster care with non-indigenous families.
The daylong information session took place on Feb. 1 at Blue Quills University, in the halls and gymnasium of the former residential school. Adam North Peigan is the President of SSISA, and like all its members, North Peigan was personally a victim of the sixties scoop.
While the media wasn’t allowed to be part of much of the discussions that took place on Thursday, North Peigan offered to share his story with the St. Paul Journal.
“We were robbed. We were robbed of our culture and we suffered a lot of abuse in the homes. Physical, mental, social, and sexual abuse,” said North Peigan, He added that one of the worst things victims experienced was losing their identity.
“One of the biggest losses we had to endure was loss of language. The majority of Sixties Scoop survivors in Canada today, because they grew up in non-indigenous foster homes and adoptions, we don’t have the ability to talk our language fluently.”
He added, “And that is a huge loss, because as indigenous people, how we are defined is through our language.”
North Peigan was an infant when he was taken away from his home in 1964 in Fort Macleod, Alta.
“I was put in numerous non-indigenous foster homes in southern Alberta right up until I was 17, before I finally came home.”
He further explained, “When Alberta Social Services came in and removed not only me but all of my siblings - and I have 12 brothers and sisters - we were all placed in isolation and different foster homes and children shelters all over southern Alberta, we weren’t together.”
His mother, now 83 years old and battling leukemia, feels guilt towards losing her children. North Peigan initially despised his parents, but now realizes what really happened to their family so many years ago.
“When I came home I had a lot of resentment towards my birth parents, because I had blamed them for what had happened to me. And that resentment that I carried really led me to a very destructive life as a young adult.”
“It wasn’t until my mother and I we’re able to start (talking) about what had happened, and she told me about her experiences (living) in a residential school…it helped me to understand maybe there is a reason why my parents weren’t able to parent me the way that I should have been parented.”
His mother’s battle did not start and end with residential schools, however. She also had to deal with losing all of her children at once. When Alberta Social Services removed her children, they gave her a court date to appear in family court.
“When she went to that court date, she was told by the social workers and the judge ‘I’m sorry Ms. North Peigan, you’re never going to see your kids again.’”
North Peigan began his quest for government reconciliation back in June of 2015 when now former Premier of Manitoba Greg Selinger issued an official apology to Sixties Scoop survivors in Manitoba.
North Peigan was moved by the act, and so he got to work. He wrote letters and placed calls to media outlets all across Alberta to get the word out that an apology should be issued in Alberta for its participation in the scoop.
The NDP had been sworn in in Alberta just three weeks prior to the Selinger apology, and North Peigan started writing letters to Premier Notley and former Minister of Aboriginal Relations Kathleen Ganley.
The letters went back and forth, and in June of 2016, North Peigan got a sit down meeting with current Minister of Indigenous Relations Richard Feehan, and shared his story.
Not satisfied with what he feels was a lack-of-action, on March 1 of 2017 North Peigan went to now UCP MLA for Lac La Biche-St. Paul-Two Hills Dave Hanson, to tell his story and expressed to him that Sixties Scoop survivors need reconciliation.
“What (Hanson) told me is ‘Adam, this is a travesty. And we’re going to do something about it.’ So we (did).”
They tabled Sixties Scoop as an agenda item in the legislature on March 16, 2017.
The day was strategically chosen because Alberta Finance Minister Joe Ceci was releasing the provincial budget, so lots of members of the media were in attendance, and they wanted to grab as many ears as they could.
“When I went home that day, within 20 minutes of walking into my house I got a call from (Feehan) saying ‘let’s do something,’ and that’s how this whole thing began.”
North Peigan began bringing survivors together as a committee, and on April 18, SSISA was officially formed.
Both the Government of Alberta and SSISA have agreed that they need to speak with as many Sixties Scoop survivors as possible, to hear the impact it had on their lives.
“We basically ask (survivors) ‘when someone says I’m sorry, what does that mean to you?’ and taking all that information and crafting it into the actual wording of an apology, and what it will look like,” North Peigan explained.
“It’s really hard to put a dollar value or an apology on the years and years of trauma that happened to us. But the way that we (Sixties Scoop survivors) feel is that reconciliation begins with an acknowledgment.”
Last week, while he was visiting St. Paul, Minister Feehan echoed North Peigan’s sentiments about a meaningful atonement.
“(The apology) really has to be about us coming to the place where we are apologizing with full knowledge of what we’re apologizing for, why, and what the implications are and then using the apology to move things forward and make change,” Feehan said. “The only way to get that kind of depth is to actually be in a relationship with the person you are apologizing to, so you understand what you’re apologizing for.”
North Peigan stressed that this effort isn’t just for the survivors.
“We want to tell the Premier that the apology isn’t just to the Sixties Scoop survivors themselves, it’s the families. It’s the parents that we were taken away from, and it’s also the next generation, like my kids. My kids are the products of the Sixties Scoop (generation).”
These information sessions are just the beginning of the road, according to Feehan.
“The apology is not the end of anything, in fact it’s likely to be described as more of the beginning… apologies are about future behavior, not past.”
He added, “Everyone knows what it’s like to get an apology that doesn’t feel real, where they say ‘I’m sorry’ but nothing’s going to change. We don’t want to have that. We see an apology as one step in a series of steps in the journey. And the continuing journey will be how do we ensure indigenous kids stay in their family homes and live healthy lives and have success.”
When asked if the Sixties Scoop was the last government interference in indigenous families lives, North Peigan let out a long sigh before answering.
“I’d like to think it was, but what we’ve seen happen after the Sixties Scoop is there is still a large number of indigenous children that are in care. Those numbers are going up, and they’re not coming down.”
He added, “What’s happening right now is referred to as the ‘Millennium Scoop,’ because there is still a high number of indigenous children in care.”
A 2005 study says 27,500 indigenous children are no longer living with their parents, which is more than double the amount of children forced into residential schools in the 1940s and 50s.
According to North Peigan, the difference between the Sixties Scoop and the ‘Millennium Scoop’ is Kinship Care.
The ministry of Alberta has an obligation to look for extended family or relatives through Kinship Care for a suitable home for the child, rather than being placed in foster care immediately.
“(Kinship Care) wasn’t an option in my era, we were just taken away,” North Peigan said.
