Métis federation launches second class action over ’60s Scoop

The Manitoba Métis Federation has launched a second court action over the apprehension of Métis children during the ’60s Scoop.

The federation and Albert Beck, a Métis man who was adopted by a non-Indigenous family, filed a proposed class action lawsuit against the Manitoba government in the Court of King’s Bench last week.

The proposed class action seeks damages over the harm suffered by Métis kids who were taken into care and placed with non-Indigenous families in Canada and the United States over several decades.

“The (‘60s) Scoop caused significant, irreparable harm to the Red River Métis children that were removed from their homes and communities. They suffered trauma and physical, sexual, and psychological abuse,” reads the proposed class action.

“Their Red River Métis identities were suppressed by their new families, and they grew up with little or no connection to their Red River Métis roots.”

That resulted in challenges in their adulthood, the papers say.

Beck, the proposed representative plaintiff, was born in 1968 in Ste. Rose du Lac to a Métis mother. He was taken by a Manitoba children’s aid society shortly after birth and placed in foster care in Cranberry Portage the next year. Beck was adopted by the family in 1970.

He learned he was adopted at around five or six years of age, says the claim, but did not learn about his Indigenous identity until he was 28.

“Although he has developed a deep connection with the Red River Métis since learning about his Indigenous identity, he has suffered and continues to suffer from complex post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, and depression, as a result of the many years he was unaware of his identity and his community,” reads the claim.

Beck is the proposed representative for all Red River Métis who were apprehended by Manitoba child welfare agencies from 1939 to 1991 and placed in the care of or adopted by non-Métis families.

The new lawsuit asks the court to declare that the government breached its duty to those taken from their homes as well as their rights. It seeks a court order for a monetary award and judgment.

“Their Red River Métis identities were suppressed by their new families, and they grew up with little or no connection to their Red River Métis roots.”

A Federal Court judge ruled earlier this year that the federal government did not owe a duty of care to non-status Indigenous children, including Métis children, because it did not fund provincial child welfare for them.

The court filing argues that because the provincial government played a central role in child welfare in Manitoba, it breached its duty to Métis children by funding, directing and overseeing “forced apprehensions” in which children were placed outside their communities and by allegedly failing to put safeguards in place to protect their health, well-being and cultural identity.

The province has not yet responded to the claim in court.

The court filing says its not known how many Métis children were taken into care because they weren’t recorded in files as Métis.

Indigenous and Métis activists raised concern about the practice in the 1970s, leading most provinces to stop adopting out the children, but Manitoba was the last province to abandon it, in 1982.

A provincial inquiry in 1985 deemed the practice “cultural genocide.”

The new claim, which has not been certified as a class action, was filed several weeks after the federation filed its first lawsuit against the federal and provincial governments over the ’60s Scoop.

“He has suffered and continues to suffer from complex post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, and depression, as a result of the many years he was unaware of his identity and his community.”

Neither government has responded to the earlier claim in court.

The federal government settled an earlier class action over the Scoop in 2017, acknowledging its role in the adoptions and the harms it caused to First Nations and Inuit who were taken into care, but the Red River Métis weren’t included in that $750-million agreement.

“More than eight years later, no level of government has compensated Red River Métis victims of the (’60s) Scoop for the harms they suffered,” reads the new claim.

erik.pindera@freepress.mb.ca