In Indigenous Studies 100 taught by Professor Christian Thompson, I wrote a paper on the topic of the sixties scoop. below is a portion of said paper.

By removing Indigenous children from their families and communities, the government was intentionally removing them from access to their cultural and ancestral ties (McKenzie et al., 2016). O’conner (2019) writes, “Some reserves lost almost an entire generation of their children to the welfare system.” The impact of losing a generation of children on culture and community is detrimental because traditions and ways of knowing can no longer be passed down and are likely to be forgotten. In the case of the sixties scoop, children were not only taken from their communities but were commonly placed in white households: “From the mid-1960s to the early 1980s, Manitoba lost about 3,000 aboriginal children to white adoption” (Dolha, 2009).  The children placed within these homes had their ethnic identities stolen from them and sealed away with birth records that were nearly impossible to obtain: “Birth records [could not] be opened unless both the child and parent consented” (Hanson, 2009). Obstacles such as this prevented the children who were taken from reconnecting to their culture. Unfortunately, Indigenous children were not only removed from their communities and placed in white ones, but they were also often placed in homes with a low quality of care. Abuse was not uncommon in placement homes ranging from physical, emotional, and sexual abuse (Hanson, 2009). To many of the people taking in Indigenous children, they were seen as cheques or free laborers (Mackenzie et al., 2016). The treatment and care in these homes is inexcusable and proves that the child welfare system was not ever concerned about the treatment of Indigenous children. In contrast, they were focused on implementing another way to oppress Indigenous communities. Clearly, Indigenous children were removed from their communities not due to the care their parental figures were providing but instead removed as a direct attempt to commit cultural genocide.

the resources I used within the paper are great educational resources and can be found under Reconciliation resources, for your convenience: https://edusites.uregina.ca/desyraecarstensen/reconciliation-resources/