Ontario Sixties Scoop Claim

About the Ontario Sixties Scoop Claim + Registration as a Class Member

About the Ontario Sixties Scoop Claim + Registration as a Class Member

About the Ontario Sixties Scoop Claim

The Ontario Sixties Scoop Claim (www.sixtiesscoopclaim.com) is about an agreement between Canada and Ontario that resulted in a lost generation of Indian children.

The children were “lost” because they lost their cultural identity, family, extended family, community, language, spirituality, traditions and customs of their First Nations’ communities. Canada turned a blind eye to the protection of the identity of the Indian child when it entered into an agreement leaving these children to be dealt with under Ontario child protection and adoption laws without regard to their cultural identity.

The Ontario Sixties Scoop Claim holds Canada to its constitutional responsibility for the protection of the cultural identity of the Indian.

Some writers, commentators and survivors, say that what Canada did was intentional, that by turning a blind eye through the agreement with Ontario, a generation of Indian children would be assimilated into mainstream culture.

Some international NGO observers argue that what took place was a form of genocide,identity genocide, carried out by the Canadian government.

In the meantime, register here if you are one of the survivors of the lost generation of children of the Sixties Scoop.

Registration as a Class Member

The “Class” Definition

In Brown & Commanda v. Canada [2013] ONSC 5637, [2013] O.J. No. 4381 (S.C.J.), the Honourable Justice Edward Belobaba defines the “class” for the Ontario Sixties Scoop Claim as follows:

Indian children who were taken from their homes on reserves in Ontario between December 1, 1965 and December 31, 1984 and were placed in the care of non-aboriginal foster or adoptive parents who did not raise the children in accordance with the aboriginal person’s customs, traditions, and practices.

Therefore, to be a member of the class, you are a person who:

1. is an Indian, and

2. was removed from your Indian reserve, and

3. was removed from your Ontario reserve between December 1, 1965 and December 31, 1984, and

4. was placed in the care of non-aboriginal foster or adoptive parents, and

5. those non-aboriginal foster parents or adoptive parents did not raise you in accordance with your aboriginal or Indian customs, traditions and practices.

If you cannot remember or you don’t know enough information to know if you qualify as a “class” member, should you still register?

The answer is “YES”. Please register.

If you don’t know or don’t remember any information as described in the examples below, please register.

You may qualify even if you don’t know or remember the information you might think you need to know or remember.

READ ON and if you fall into any of the following 12 examples then doregister as a class member:

(1) If you can’t remember or don’t know the date when you lived on a reserve, but can only remember the date when you were placed in a non-aboriginal foster or non-aboriginal adoptive home, register. It does not matter that you cannot remember the date when you lived on a reserve.

(2) If you can’t remember or don’t know the date when you were place in a non-aboriginal foster or non-aboriginal adoptive home, but can remember when you were removed from your Indian community, register. It does not matter that you cannot remember or do not know the date when you were placed in a non-aboriginal foster or non-aboriginal adoptive home.

(3) If you can’t remember or do not know the dates of either events, can’t remember or do not know when you lived on a reserve or when you were placed in a non-aboriginal foster or non-aboriginal adoptive home, register. It does not matter that you cannot remember or do not know the dates of either event.

(4) If you can’t remember or do not know the exact dates, or even the year when it happened, just approximately some time during the 20-year period, register. It does not matter that you cannot remember or do not know the exact dates of either event.

(5) If you can’t remember or do not know where you ended up, the place of your foster home or adoptive home, register. You don’t need to know or remember where you were placed.

(6) If you can’t remember or do not know the name or location of your original reserve, register. You don’t need to remember or know the name or location of your reserve as long as it was in Ontario.

(7) If you can’t remember or do not know if you were a status Indian when you were removed, register. You don’t need proof of your Indian status to register.

(8) If you went from an Indian residential school to a non-aboriginal foster home or non-aboriginal adoptive home, register. We intend to include you as part of the class.

(9) If you were born as an Indian and did not ever live on a reserve, but went directly to a non-aboriginal foster home or non-aboriginal adoptive home, register.

(10) If you were removed before December 1, 1965 but placed in a non-aboriginal foster home or non-aboriginal adoptive home any time between December 1, 1965 and December 31, 1984, register.

(11) If you don’t know whether where you lived was an official or registered Indian reserve, register. It does not matter whether you know whether the First Nations community was or was not an official or registered reserve.

(12) If you know you were not a status Indian when you were removed, and then placed in a non-aboriginal foster home or adoptive home, but you identity as a Canadian aboriginal person, for example, a Métis, register. Indicate this fact on the registration form.

Letting Others Know About this Website and Registration

After you have registered, send out notice to anyone else you know who might want to know about the Ontario Sixties Scoop Claim (www.sixtiesscoopclaim.com). Brown and Commanda started this case believing that all persons who were affected would come forward and begin the long road of healing from the pain of being the lost generation of children of the Sixties Scoop. Please share this page.