The lawsuit turns on a federal-provincial arrangement — now dubbed the ’60s Scoop — in which Ontario child welfare services placed as many as 16,000 aboriginal children with non-native families from December 1965 to December 1984. Their unproven claim alleges the children suffered a devastating loss of cultural identity that Canada negligently failed to protect. The children, the suit states, suffered emotional, psychological and spiritual harm from the lost connection to their aboriginal heritage. I lost everything about my culture,” Marcia Brown Martel, the representative plaintiff in the Ontario case, told The Canadian Press. Last week, five aboriginal leaders wrote Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to urge his government to settle, and admit the “immense wrong” done the scoop children.

Source: National Post August 21, 2016 14:50 UTC