Friday marks the deadline for Sixties Scoop survivors to apply for compensation under a federal class action lawsuit.
Critics of the deadline say former adoptees need more time, and that some may not even know yet about the settlement.
Colleen Cardinal, co-founder of the organization National Indigenous Survivors of Child Welfare, says people are calling her in a panic.
“They’re like, oh my God, I didn’t know — like, I may be eligible or my siblings, or somebody I know was an adoptee and they don’t know about it,” she said. “So people are scrambling to get their information.”
Nearly two years ago Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Carolyn Bennett stood with adoptees and announced each would receive $25,000 to $50,000 each in compensation for the harm they endured by being separated from their families, communities and culture.
Cardinal says word of the settlement hasn’t reached all survivors, especially those now living outside of Canada. She said she also knows individuals who believe they’re not eligible due to misconceptions.
“We know that it took place from the late ’50s up until the ’80s,” she said. “So there’s a whole bunch of people who might have missed and didn’t know. And now they only have today and tomorrow to apply.”
Cardinal believes there should be no deadline for the settlement.
APTN News reached out to Bennett’s office for comment but did not receive a response by deadline.
I personally am involved. The Government is of an attitude that if you are not evolved or educated enough to know things, they don’t care. If you say that you didn’t know, a clause in the Criminal Code stipulates that ignorance is no defense. It is not a defense to say that you didn’t know. Other settlement cases regardless of what the issue are, as follows, you don’t file in time, you don’t get a piece of the pie. It’s the law. It is a way to protect against deceptive claims or dolling unnecessary funds by the government.
Well this is all fine with me especially when the lawyer said they promised us $50K so the fewer claimants that come forward the better for the ones who applied.
The lawyers want to walk away from this class action better off. Living their lives off of Our abuses, hurt and the fact some of us don’t even have a solid home base. These lawyers have ya stay in lavish hotels when we were in Ottawa to be paraded around like at a meat market try to sell the best of their lies.
It doesn’t sit well with me that this claim has come down to these lawyers being the ones that got paid a straight fee and here we are fighting over peanuts and we will still be struggling in this mainstream society that took us from our peoples in the first place. I’d rather have seen the government man up and gave us lands with a house on it and the utilities included (electricity and gas). This money won’t last and especially if it’s going to be $25K cause I had that last year and it was gone in matter of weeks and didn’t get me ahead one bit! All I can say now this was an utter shame right from the gusto and this will continue to happen in this country if the leadership of Assembly of First Nations make a stand for once and stop this government from keeping us down like this. So this blame is on them and the lawyers and especially the judge because he didn’t keep an unbiased decision in this matter and allowed this to happen this way. Ayay
this has been widely publicized not only by the media and Native Organizations and on Rez for years..if you picked up a paper in the last number of years you may have stumbled across an article .. myself I contacted every Nish I knew and asked them to spread the word as well .. I think most of us have done this .. For every action there is an end and the date was fixed, it has been long and lengthy and this should be the end of it…for others that may come along and feel they’re left out i can say this .. This claim is only pocket change to the politicians, it is not much money at all and a pittance compared to other claims but this isn’t about the money at all. It is about being acknowledged that there is a guilt factor and that the theft of thousands of brown skin children was wrong and the hell many suffered from being stolen and given away to adoption by whites or fostered out into a system that had few guidelines on the respectability or morality of whites who were all part of the systemic racism of the day, continues on but so much difference.. this lawsuit is about theft and loss of our identity, our names, our families, our language, our people, our community, our history, our story tellers, our people…this claim is about genocide. now, for those that feel they have been left out in any way there are other class actions happening and i suggest you look into them immediately . I’m sorry for those who were so unaware that they missed this one but there are beginnings and ends and this was too well known to have been easily missed.