Jim Oskineegish: Keep Yourself Alive

Jim Oskineegish, “The Power of Soul - Jimi Hendrix,” 2010, acrylic on canvas, 60" x 48" (courtesy of the Ahnisnabae Art Gallery)

Keep Yourself Alive is the debut exhibition by Jim Oskineegish, a second-generation Woodland artist from Eabametoong First Nation (Fort Hope). Curated by Caitlyn Bird, Jim’s paintings fuse personal stories with Woodland, Surrealism, and Pop Art. This exhibition of thirteen portraits is a love letter to his heroes.

In 2010, after a major surgery and a long recovery, Jim experienced painful memories from his childhood, specifically the abuse and trauma he endured as a Sixties Scoop survivor.  In his My Hero Series, he portrays his childhood heroes including 1980s rock stars like Jimi Hendrix and Freddie Mercury and movie stars such as Bruce Lee and Chief Dan George.  His portraits also pay homage to family and friends, like his late brother, Robert Kowalow.  For Jim, these heroes have qualities of strength and bravery and provided comfort and inspiration for keeping yourself alive.

Jim Oskineegish is an Ojibway artist who is a registered member of the Eabametoong First Nation which is located in Northern Ontario, Canada.  Jim paints in the Woodland Style using bold lines and bright colors.  He loves to paint legends and stories of his people and hopes that his art can bridge a universal understanding of love, faith, and unity.

Jim has post-secondary instruction in the field of visual arts and has further developed his own unique and distinctive style.  If Jim can evoke a response or emotion from the viewer, then he feels that he is successful in the world of contemporary art.  While in attendance at Lakehead University, he was awarded the Framing Experience Award during the Lakehead University Juried Student Art Exhibition in 1990-1992. Subsequently, he then was awarded the Thunder Bay Society of Architects Award during the Lakehead University Juried Student Art Exhibition in 1991-1992.  Keep Yourself Alive is his first solo exhibition.

Organized and circulated by the Thunder Bay Art Gallery

MORE HERE:  https://www.gallerieswest.ca/events/jim-oskineegish-keep-alive/?occ_dtstart=2025-04-02T00:00

MMF announces $2M investment into fund for Sixties Scoop survivors | APT...

I had no idea what being Native was

REBLOG FROM 2018 - she explains how the Class Action in Canada was not working!

 

We applaud Colleen! She's our hero!

Colleen Cardinal is a mother, author, and survivor of the Sixties Scoop. She joins us this week to talk about how she perceived being Indigenous as a child, intergenerational trauma, and how Canada has failed to address its past treatment of Indigenous peoples. [Episode 17 Transcript]

Top court upholds Indigenous child welfare law, AFN chief reacts

Sixties Scoop survivors call for federal inquiry and apology

 Survivors' group, Sinclair say more needed to uncover full number of children taken

CBC News ·August 2

Katherine Legrange is a Sixties Scoop adoptee and volunteer co-ordinator of the 60s Scoop Legacy of Canada group, which is calling for a federal inquiry. (Submitted by Katherine Legrange)

WARNING: This story contains distressing details.

Former Canadian senator Murray Sinclair and a group representing survivors of the Sixties Scoop are calling for a federal inquiry into the actions and policies of governments that led to thousands of Indigenous children being taken from their homes over four decades and placed with non-Indigenous families.

"There have been studies on the Sixties Scoop, but we really haven't delved into how far-reaching the effects really are," said Katherine Legrange, volunteer co-ordinator with the 60s Scoop Legacy of Canada.

An inquiry is needed to get a full account of the number of children taken, and the impacts on the lives of survivors and their families, said Legrange, a plaintiff in one of the lawsuits involving survivors. 

The children who were removed need to know they are not alone, but they also need to know that there were reasons for what happened that were not of their parents' making.

- Murray Sinclair, former senator

Sinclair, who chaired the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, said many of the challenges facing Indigenous families that led to the apprehension of their children stemmed from the legacy of decades of the residential school system.

"The children who were removed need to know they are not alone, but they also need to know that there were reasons for what happened that were not of their parents' making," he said in a release.

• Sixties Scoop survivors receive cheques but still looking for healing support

The group wants a meeting with federal Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Carolyn Bennett to discuss an inquiry, as well as a national apology and a settlement for Métis and non-status survivors who were excluded from a 2017 class-action settlement.

Canada's settlement agreement set aside $750 million to compensate First Nations and Inuit children who were removed from their homes and placed with non-Indigenous foster or adoptive parents between 1951 and 1991, and ended up losing their cultural identities.

Views differ on number of children taken

Estimates of the number of children taken are at around 20,000, but Legrange said survivors and families believe the figure is much higher.

Legrange and her brother were born seven months apart. They were separated from each other when they were children, but reunited in 2019 after she tracked him down on Facebook. 

"He welcomed me with open arms, never questioned who I was or where I came from, and so we connected quite well," Legrange said.

Recently, however, Legrange lost contact with her brother, who she said endured trauma as a result of his experiences in the child welfare system.

"He's marginalized, he was suffering with unresolved trauma and some addictions issues, and unfortunately he passed away from an overdose on June 11. And it wasn't until July 18 that I was notified that he had passed away."

In 2018, Bennett pledged a separate settlement for Métis and non-status Indigenous survivors, but Legrange said her group has not had any meetings yet with Bennett to discuss it.

Leslie Michelson, a spokesperson for Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada, said the Sixties Scoop settlement agreement was "only the first step" to address the harm done by that system.

"We know that there are other claims that remain unresolved, including those of the Métis and non-status First Nations, and we are working with our partners toward a fair and lasting resolution for all survivors," Michelson said in an emailed statement on Monday evening.

On top of individual compensation, the Sixties Scoop settlement also agreed on the need for a foundation to support those affected, the statement said.

"It was crucial to all of those involved that this foundation would bring forward the perspectives of survivors to undertake and fund healing, wellness, education, language and culture activities related to the Sixties Scoop," Michelson said.

• Mé​tis and non-status First Nations launch Sixties Scoop lawsuit over identity loss

Although the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the national inquiry inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls (MMIWG) examined elements of the Sixties Scoop, there are key differences that need to be considered, Legrange said.

Many survivors of residential schools returned to their home communities; the Sixties Scoop involved the permanent removal of children from their families, she said.

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Support is available for anyone affected by their experience at residential schools and for those triggered by the latest reports.

A national Indian Residential School Crisis Line has been set up to provide support for residential school survivors and those affected. People can access emotional and crisis referral services by calling the 24-hour national crisis line: 1-866-925-4419.

• Do you know of a child who never came home from residential school? Or someone who worked at one? We would like to hear from you. Email our Indigenous-led team investigating the impacts of residential schools at wherearethey@cbc.ca or call toll-free: 1-833-824-0800.
• Do you have information about residential schools? Email your tips to: WhereAreThey@cbc.ca
  

'I, Ben Miljure, am an Indigenous man': Kamloops tragedy a moment of truth for CTV News journalist #60sScoop

 The next generation of 60s Scoop survivors...

 

My aunt tells me she and my mother are both survivors of the '60s Scoop, a period of time when government policies allowed child welfare authorities to easily take Indigenous children from their families, place them in foster homes, and in many cases adopt them out to white families. It’s all part of a cycle of trauma and I’m finally beginning to see my place within it.

It was against this backdrop that I found myself covering the confirmation of those 215 school children’s remains buried on the grounds of the Kamloops Indian Residential School, and the emotions I had so carefully kept in check all these years came unexpectedly flooding out. 

I sobbed my way through the report, barely able to pronounce the words, as all of the forces that have shaped my life, and my family’s lives, and the lives of so many generations of my fellow Indigenous people, seemed to swirl around me.

Initially, I was embarrassed. But with reflection over the past few days, I realize that I have nothing to be ashamed of, but clearly a lot of work to do.I am still figuring out what that will look like, but I know it will involve an effort to reclaim my cultural identity and learn how I fit within the 'Na̱mg̱is First Nation, and establish stronger ties with my people.We also have a lot of work to do as a country, to confront the terrible atrocities that led us to this place where we are all burdened by a dark and shameful legacy that begins with the residential school system, leading to the '60s Scoop, and continuing today with blatant inequality in the child welfare and criminal justice systems.

It is time for all Canadians to learn the true history of this country’s terrible and ongoing mistreatment of Indigenous people — because only then can true healing and reconciliation begin. For me, that journey of understanding begins now.

READ: 'I, Ben Miljure, am an Indigenous man': Kamloops tragedy a moment of truth for CTV News journalist | CTV News

Up Front Ep. 2 - The Sixties Scoop

BRINGING OUR CHILDREN HOME events in Manitoba

The First Nations Family Advocate Office (FNFAO) is hosting "Bringing Our Children Home" National Conference November 25-27, 2019 with a Gala Event on the evening of November 26, 2019 

read more here

Canada's Secret Scoop #NAAM2019

The 60’s Scoop – “Do you know what the 60's Scoop means?

60s Scoop adoptee: Eric Schweig

Eric Schweig
Born:  Ray Dean Thrasher	on 19 June 1967  Inuvik, Northwest Territories, Canada
Occupation	Actor/Artisan/Outreach Worker
Years active	1989-present

Schweig was born in Inuvik, Northwest Territories. He is of mixed race (Inuvialuk, Chippewa-Dene and German).^[2] He is the oldest of seven children, who were all adopted out as part of the Canadian government's failed attempt at forcing Inuit and First Nations children to assimilate into white society. Schweig's biological mother died of alcoholism in 1989. He never met her. "She didn’t drink a drop of alcohol until we were taken away," says Schweig. "We were part of the whole assimilation program—forcibly taken away, although my adoptive parents told me I wasn't."^[3] Schweig was adopted at six months of age by an English speaking German-French family.^[4] He spent his childhood in Inuvik until he was six, when his family moved to Bermuda. They later moved back to Canada.
"I eventually grew tired of living in a prison without walls and ran away when I was 16. What transpired between then and now has been a roller coaster of alcohol, drugs, violence, failed relationships, despair and confusion. Who am I? Where do I come from? Where is my family? Where do I belong? When life's mystery has been shattered by strangers watching over you, a lot of these questions are lost." ^[5]
Schweig ran away to Toronto, Ontario, where he supported himself by framing houses. In 1985, he was part of the cast of The Cradle Will Fall, an experimental adaptation of Frank Wedekind's Spring Awakening produced by Theatre of Change at the Actor's Lab; this was his first experience as an actor. In 1987, at twenty years old, he was approached by a producer who suggested he audition for a role in the movie called The Shaman's Source (1990). With little formal education or experience he won the role. The film launched his career in the film industry. (wiki)

***

the artist with one of his masks

Eric Schweig Adoption Speech

The following speech was given by Eric Schweig on February 19, 1999 at the Vancouver Inner City Foster Care Conference. Invited to the conference to share his own experiences and perspectives, Eric was pleased to have the opportunity to speak on a topic close to his heart. The ramifications and issues surrounding interracial/cultural adoption are, for him, much more than a topic. They are the legacy he has been given; they are what has made him who he is ... and who he is not. It is very much the spirit behind his art; certainly the tragic inspiration for his Adoption Masks. To fully appreciate the Inuit Masks, the Adoption Masks, and all else that Eric carves, one must first appreciate the heart & motivation that creates them.
His participation in the conference was a chance to encourage more involvement on the part of the native community, be they extended family or neighbors, in the plight and care of children who desperately need someone to intervene and protect. It was also meant as a plea to replace governmental paternalism with community assistance.

These words are, according to Eric Schweig, his "mission statement."
 
"We can never go home because the concept of home is lost on us."   Adoption of aboriginal children by Caucasian couples is to me, for lack of a better term 'State Sanctioned Kidnapping.' Too often Euro-American couples are preoccupied with the romantic notion of having a "real live Indian baby" or a "real live Inuit baby" which instantly transforms the child into an object rather than a person. For decades our communities' babies have been unceremoniously wrenched from the hands of their biological parents and subjected to a plethora of abuses. Physical abuse, mental abuse, sexual abuse and a host of others. I have first-hand knowledge of this because I was one of those children. For years my adoptive parents beat me bloody on a regular basis. I've been trapped in rooms naked and beaten with belt buckles, hockey sticks, extension cords, and once with a horsewhip.
I'm not saying this to shock you or to gain pity; I'm just stating fact. I eventually grew tired of living in a prison without walls and ran away when I was 16. What transpired between then and now has been a roller coaster of alcohol, drugs, violence, failed relationships, despair and confusion. Who am I? Where do I come from? Where is my family? Where do I belong? When life's mystery has been shattered by strangers watching over you, a lot of these questions are lost.
There has been some good times as well, regardless, but for reasons that I've just started to understand, there has always been an impending sense of doom that controlled my actions and behavior, but now that I've been clean and sober for 8 months and actually started working on myself I'm beginning to step out of my father's shadow and into the light of day where life isn't so murky or such a struggle. 
  There are many of us who have been raised in this manner and not just aboriginal people. A myriad of different ethnic groups have suffered the pain and humiliation of being brought up by certain morally bankrupt individuals who seem to get their kicks out of abusing children.
I shouldn't neglect to say that there are some, not many, but some Euro-American parents who have raised their adopted aboriginal children in a stable and loving environment. But for the majority of us, living as a young aboriginal person growing up in an environment with that much hostility and disregard is an all too early lesson in pain and loneliness.
I haven't even begun to speak about the cultural devastation that occurs when an adopted teenage aboriginal person wakes up one day and realizes just how different they are from the world around them. How differently they are regarded at school, in the mall, on the street, and at home. The racial slurs in public, the condescending looks from strangers that sometimes turns into outright violence, depending on the situation.
And what about the aboriginal mothers and fathers who will probably never forget the new baby smell that babies always seem to have, and who will never be able to see them again? Can you imagine the profound longing in their hearts that they feel every day their child is gone?
A lot of us are discarded, lost, and wander into self imposed exile only to be devoured by the system because we have no idea where it is that we belong. We end up being "nowhere people" with absolutely nothing to hang on to; nothing to keep us grounded and safe. We can never go home because the concept of home is lost on us.
So my hat goes off to those of us who have survived the ordeal with our souls intact and still above ground, and my prayers go out to those who haven't.
Many of us are dead. Many of our biological mothers and fathers are dead because the absence of their children forced them to give up, and lose themselves in alcohol or drugs and eventually die from broken hearts.
I have an urgent appeal to the Canadian government, or any government that advocates the adoption of aboriginal children to Euro-American parents. If you insist upon taking our children away from us, or if they have to be removed for their safety or well being, let aboriginal people handle it. Your paternalism is insulting, and to coin a phrase, "it's getting old." Let "us" find a safe environment for them, that is either within or in reasonable proximity of their respective communities, and assist us in doing so.
We are not all 100% healed, but healing takes time, and we've waited 500 years already, I don't see how a month or two of decision and law making by you will matter much.
In the meantime, I hope other adopted adult or teenage aboriginal children of these so called parents are listening and remember that no matter how lost you feel, how lonely it is, or how scared you feel, reach out by any means within your power, because somewhere there might be a man and a woman who look just like you and who are bound to you by blood, who never forgot about you, and are still waiting to meet you and invite you back to a place that is your RIGHT to belong in. Your community, your family, and your home.
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak about an issue that is scarcely recognized. It means the world to me.  

 

Canada Blamed for ‘Genocide’ Against Indigenous Women

An inquiry concluded that high rates of violence against indigenous women in Canada amount to a genocide fueled by government abuses

 

WALL STREET JOURNAL

Mr. Trudeau has said the relationship between the Canadian government and indigenous people needs to be rebuilt and the process will likely take decades.

Monday’s report isn’t the first time Canada’s treatment of indigenous people has been labeled a genocide. A separate inquiry released in 2015 found Canada’s centurylong practice of forcibly removing indigenous children from their homes and educating them at government-funded residential schools was a “cultural genocide.” (We call this the 60s Scoop but it was before and after the 1960s)

Matthew Fletcher, who directs the indigenous law and policy center at Michigan State University, said Native Americans have faced similar wrongs in the U.S., including the forced removal of children from Native American families. He said Canada has done more in recent years to recognize the problem publicly.


READ: Canada Blamed for ‘Genocide’ Against Indigenous Women - WSJ

Democracy Now on 6-4-19

#SixtiesScoop Settlement

There is Now A Settlement

The two Courts have approved the settlement.

Please contact the class proceeding administrator, Collectiva at 1-(844) 287-4270 for more information regarding the claims’ application process.

The settlement provides free legal assistance to all inquiring survivors or claimants.
If you are a member of the Brown v Canada class, please call the law firm  Wilson Christen LLP at 1-866-360-5952. 
If you are not part of the Brown v Canada class, you may call any one or more of these three law firms for free legal assistance:

Klein Lawyers LLP at (778) 654-7171

Koskie Minsky at 1-(855) 595-2626

Merchant Law at 1- (888) 567-7777

If your inquiry is about the Sixties Scoop Healing Foundation, please wait for a separate announcement from the Foundation about the work it will be doing.
All of us, at this website, who have walked this journey for many years, apologize to all survivors for the confusion and alienation so many have experienced in consequence of the workings of the class action legal process.
Ontario Brown v Canada Sixties Scoop Claim Litigation Committee

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Open Letter on the Ontario Sixties Scoop Class Action Settlement

Dear Community Members,
The fight for justice has been a long one. We launched the class action lawsuit for Ontario Sixties Scoop survivors in 2009, but we have been fighting for justice for much longer than that.
We know there is misinformation and false speculation about the proposed national Sixties Scoop settlement. We are addressing this issue to ensure that everyone has the correct information.
What this settlement gives us, in addition to money, is a healing foundation.
This foundation will be run by an Indigenous Board and Indigenous Executive Director. Its goal is to help families become whole again and to prevent any child, in the future, from going through what we went through. True wealth is the freedom from oppression. This is for our children and our grandchildren, and they need it and deserve it.
People also want to know who was consulted about this agreement. As the lead claimant in the only certified Sixties Scoop case in the country, I have listened to thousands of survivors. This is a journey we have taken together. We have learned from each other and supported each other. All of these stories I carried with me into the negotiations with Canada. The other representative plaintiffs carried with them their stories and their communities’ stories as well. We all stood behind Minister Bennett together when the settlement was announced.
With your stories in our hearts – we fought. Because of our stories in our hearts, we won. We could not have done it with out you.
I know this journey has been hard. We have the opportunity to move forward with this settlement, which includes a healing foundation. It is our foundation.
We want to ensure that all your questions are answered with facts. Please visit www.sixtiesscoopclaim.com to find correct information.
Thank you, Tcimigwitc,
Marcia Brown Martel
Lead Claimant, Ontario Sixties Scoop Lawsuit

Email: thesixtiesscoopclaim@gmail.com
Phone: 1-866-360-5952 ext. 217

An apology will not bring back the dead children

(Residential school survivor Evelyn Korkmaz, left, Senator Murray Sinclair, and NDP MP Romeo Saganash at a news conference in Ottawa)

Catholic bishops news conference only adds confusion around Pope’s apology to residential school survivors

National News | April 18, 2018 by Kathleen Martens

A news conference to clear the air about the Pope’s apology to Indian residential school survivors only seemed to confuse things further.
Bishop Lionel Gendron told reporters in Ottawa Wednesday the Catholic church is a “decentralized” organization and Pope Francis can’t be held responsible for what others have done.
But Senator Murray Sinclair called that “a failure” and said the apology demanded by his Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) is needed by survivors to heal.

Senior leaders of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops addressed the media in Ottawa in front of an NDP motion to be tabled in the House of Commons calling on Pope Francis to apologize for residential schools. The motion failed after one MP voted no. It’s not clear who voted against it, but in a scrum prior to Question Period, Conservative Indigenous Affairs Critic said it has no place in parliament.

“We like to keep a separation between church and state in terms of Parliament directing specific actions,” she said. “And I think we also believe that that’s an important distinction to keep, which the other parties don’t believe.”

The bishops said the Pope may apologize in person if he came to Canada and met with Indigenous peoples.

But according to Richard Gagnon, Archbishop of Winnipeg and vice-president of the CCCB, the church has already done so, said “The pope never said he wouldn’t apologize,” Gagnon said. “What the Holy Father did say was he would not personally respond to (TRC) call to Action 58.”

Does that mean Yes or No the Pope will apologize?

“Our concern is that it’s important to clear up any misconceptions that are out there and correct any inaccuracies,” Gagnon added.
The answer confused reporters who continued to yell questions as the black-robed religious figures left the room.

---

Sinclair was accompanied by NDP-MPs Charlie Angus and Romeo Saganash (Abitibi-Baie-James-Nunavik-Eeyou), who bashed the bishops’ behaviour.
“I am disgusted,” said Saganash, a Cree politician from Quebec who survived 10 years in residential school.

“To state ‘the Catholic church as a whole in Canada was not associated with the residential schools’ pushes this church towards very irresponsible, historical, revisionism,” added Angus (Timmins-James Bay), a Catholic.

Sen. Murray Sinclair, who chaired the TRC, said it was sad to see the church try and distance itself from the issue now.
“They’re not taking responsibility and that’s a shame,” he said.
It took survivor Evelyn Korkmaz, who shared the stage with the politicians, to clarify the subject.
“The church has acknowledged wrongdoing,” she said. “So all we’re asking for is a verbal apology.”
Korkmaz attended notorious St. Anne’s residential school in Angus’s riding, whose survivors are battling Ottawa for the same compensation offered other survivors.
Angus, who has been championing their fight, said the church has to apologize and noted he was “distressed” Canadian bishops weren’t insisting he do that.
But Gagnon defended the head of the church.
“I agree with the way the Pope is handling this in waiting for an opportune time,” he said.
“He has been invited to Canada from the prime minister, from three of our presidents of the Catholic conference of bishops of Canada…His response had to do with Call to Action No. 58 and its rather strict confines.”
Pope Francis has apologized to Indigenous peoples in Bolivia for the impact of colonialism and said sorry to survivors of priestly sexual abuse in Ireland.
“We have a track record with this Pope who is not afraid to confront the hard issues,” Gagnon added.
kmartens@aptn.ca

Indian Lawsuits on School Abuse May Bankrupt Canada Churches ...

Indian Lawsuits on School Abuse May Bankrupt Canada Churches. By JAMES BROOKE NOV. 2, 2000. ...

A history of residential schools in Canada | CBC News

CBC News answers frequently asked questions about residential school abuse ...

An apology will not bring back the dead children or end the cycles of oppression we are still healing and dealing with... The Vatican still holds us hostage....an apology will never do...  Trace

 ...

‘When the pope announced that he wouldn't apologize, I was of course, as a survivor, very disappointed and after hearing what they said today… now, I'm disgusted’ https://t.co/HhGMmTBbd3 pic.twitter.com/Se97tviPr6

— APTN National News (@APTNNews) April 19, 2018

Indigenous film draws attention to #60Scoop survivors

Birth of a Family the fifth and final movie screened during the Wide Awake series

A film sharing the story of three sisters and a brother trying to rebuild their family after it was torn apart during the Sixties Scoop was shown at the University of Windsor Thursday night.
Birth of a Family was the fifth and final movie screened during the Wide Awake series put on by the university's Aboriginal Education Centre in partnership with the Arts Council Windsor and Region.

• Creator of Sixties Scoop adoption program says it wasn't meant to place kids with white families
  

It follows the journey of Betty Ann, Esther, Rosalie and Ben, who were adopted as infants into different families across North America and are just meeting again for the first time.

"I think that the policies in place were very systematic in how they were targeting First Nations people," said Kathryn Pasquach, the Aboriginal Outreach and Retention Coordinator for the university. "It was very unfortunate that the cultural importance and the belief system that Indigenous people hold were not valued."

Anthony Saracino is a university student who felt it was his duty to see the film

"I think just being a citizen of Canada — a citizen of the world — it's important to know the ground you walk on and I'm just doing my due diligence with that," he said.

• 'Naive but a good intention' — adoptive parents grapple with fallout of Sixties Scoop
  

Ostoro Petathegoose is an Indigenous woman who attended all of the screenings.
"I grew up with a lot of anti-Indigenous racism in my life and I have found when talking to a lot of people they are not educated on the history of Indigenous peoples in this country," she explained. "So I feel that movies like this are really relevant and people should be seeing movies like this."
The education centre hopes to run a similar series of films next year.

Related Stories

• An Indigenous family's fight to find the truth about Cleo, their sister taken in Sixties Scoop
• Toronto Sixties Scoop rally pushes back against government settlement
• Sixties Scoop adoptees head across Canada to try to scuttle $800M settlement

Treated like animals #60s Scoop

'They were treated like animals': How a Regina family was torn apart by the Sixties Scoop

"Thousands of us really feel like we were not a part of the families."

Mark Melnychuk, Regina Leader-Post
October 13, 2017

Michelle St. Germaine, left, and her sister Roberta St. Germaine pose for a portrait in Regina. TROY FLEECE / Regina Leader-Post

 Michelle St. Germaine looks at the camera and smiles.The 18-month-old girl is seated and wearing a white dress and dress shoes in a portrait photo. There are also pictures of her three older siblings: Terry, Roberta and Denise. Each grins for the camera.

Roberta and Denise are wearing identical dresses and knee-high socks. Their brother Terry wears a dress shirt and a bow tie. The photos resemble those taken by proud parents of their children.
Except this is an advertisement for the Adopt Indian Metis program (AIM) in a Sept. 20, 1967 issue of the Assiniboia Times newspaper. Their photos are located next to ads for men’s jackets, heavy-duty filing cabinets and classifieds for local bridal showers.
The ad is titled “Is there a home that needs a family?” Interested couples of Roman Catholic faith, with or without children, are invited to inquire. The children’s names are even changed in the ad (Rose Marie, Deanna, Cindy and Bobby), a tactic used to make it more difficult for birth parents to find them.
Michelle and her siblings were eventually placed on a farm in southeast Saskatchewan, but “family” isn’t exactly an accurate description of what awaited them.
“It wasn’t good,” says Michelle, now 51, seated at the kitchen table in her Regina home.
“They were very physically abusive,” she adds. “It was just like they adopted all of us kids to work on their farm.”
One of her earliest memories of the farm is sitting on a platform towed by a tractor driven by her adopted father. She and her siblings were helping him plant evergreens on the farm.
“There was a hole in that platform, and we had to drop trees into that hole, and I can barely remember that, so they put us to work right away,” recalls Michelle. “I must have been like three years old.”
The family’s property stretched across 19 sections of land, where Michelle and her siblings did “every kind of work there is to do on a farm.”
They say the work was accompanied by frequent beatings from their adopted father. Roberta, Michelle’s older sister, recalls one incident during the spring when she was 13 and chasing cattle up a hill.

An adoption ad featuring the St. Germaine siblings that appeared in a Sept. 20, 1967 issue of the Assiniboia Times newspaper. (Photo courtesy Assiniboia Times) Photo courtesy Assiniboia Times

Roberta was up to her knees in mud when one of her boots fell off her foot.
“So I put a step back to try to put my foot back in my boot, and he whipped me. He whipped me on my back and I had to run around in my sock foot the rest of the way,” says Roberta.
At some point, Roberta had enough. She describes an incident in which Terry lay on the floor in a Quonset as their father kicked him with steel-toed boots. Seeing her brother rolled up into a ball while receiving the beating, Roberta attacked their foster father.
“I took one hand and I took the other hand and I just pounded his head,” she remembers.
Roberta jumped off him and ran into the house, hoping to incur some of his wrath and save Terry from further blows.
It worked. Michelle remembers her father chasing Roberta into the house to begin beating her.
“It was very like living in fear most of our lives,” says Michelle.
Their adopted father passed away in 2007. An obituary published in the Leader-Post describes him as a devoted husband and father. It says he was survived by three children, but makes no mention his adopted, Indigenous children.
“They never once told us that they loved us,” says Roberta. “Never.”
Michelle and her siblings never met their biological parents again until 14 years after their adoption. But even after she escaped the abuses of her adopted home, Michelle struggled with drug addiction, worked in the sex trade, served jail time and experienced the pain of being separated from her own children when they were taken into the custody of social services.

SCOOPED

The St. Germaines are not the only ones with such a story. Hundreds of thousands of indigenous children in Canada were taken by child welfare workers during what is now called the Sixties Scoop, and many were placed into the care of white families.
Stories of abuse are pervasive among survivors, who became disconnected with their Indigenous heritage and grew up without knowing their natural parents.
In Saskatchewan, Indigenous children were adopted through AIM, a provincial child welfare program established in 1967.
Dr. Jacqueline Maurice, a survivor of the Sixties Scoop herself, authored The Lost Children: A Nation’s Shame. She is currently a clinical preceptor at the University of Saskatchewan’s College of Medicine. She’s also instructs youth care workers at Saskatchewan Polytechnic.

Roberta St. Germaine in a photo taken on Aug. 2, 2017 (left) next to a photo of her when she was five that appeared in an adoption ad placed by the Adopt Indian Metis Program that appeared in the Sept. 20, 1967 issue of the Assiniboia Times. Troy Fleece Photo

Maurice estimates between 1,700 and 1,900 aboriginal and Metis children in Saskatchewan were put through the AIM program. They were adopted to families across Canada, as well as to the United States and European countries, such as Denmark.
She describes AIM as a program with good intentions, but one that was still an outright race-based policy. With some Indigenous people unable to parent because of traumas they suffered in residential schools, the notion was that AIM would help their children. Instead, it severed another generation of Indigenous children from their families.
At the time, Maurice says the effects of intercultural adoptions was not given consideration. “The impact of that wasn’t really a high priority,” she adds.
With the challenge of finding homes for so many children, AIM was formed from a two-year grant provided by the federal and provincial governments. Part of the push to find children homes involved taking out ads in radio, TV and large print ads in provincial newspapers.
Adoptions were fast-tracked, with homes found for children in as little as ten weeks. One of AIM’s founders, Frank Dornstauder, co-authored a paper on the history of child welfare services in Saskatchewan in 2009. It states AIM made an effort to recruit families of aboriginal origin as part of “recognizing the importance of cultural identity.”
The St. Germaines’ experience of not being treated as true members of their adopted family was a common experience for victims of the Sixties Scoop.
“Thousands of us really feel like we were not a part of the families. We were always an outsider looking in, and treated like a visitor and yes indeed kept for income,” says Maurice.
Michelle’s feeling of being more like an employee than a daughter is also an experience other Sixties Scoop survivors have shared.
“I really do believe that some children were farmed out so to speak,” says Maurice.
Because of that mentality, children like the St. Germaines did not get to experience childhood.
She believes the perception of Indigenous children as workers stems from them being seen and treated as a commodity, and describes the government’s handling of the issue as a “wholesale policy of children.”
Michelle and Roberta are complainants in a class-action lawsuit filed by Merchant Law Group against the federal and provincial governments. The lawsuit seeks compensation on behalf of Sixties Scoop victims who were adopted out to white families through the AIM program.
Last week the federal government announced it would provide $800 million in a compensation package to survivors of the Sixties Scoop, with between $25,000 and $50,000 to individuals.
The provincial government said in 2015 that it would apologize for the Sixties Scoop. In August, Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall said the apology could come before the end of his time in office, which will come when the Sask. Party elects a new leader in January.

TAKEN

The last time Shirley Pelletier saw Terry, Roberta, Denise and Michelle before they were taken was in a Regina courtroom.
Pelletier, then 30, was staying with family while her sister looked after the children at home. Pelletier was then in an abusive relationship, and feared returning home after discovering her partner was having an affair.
Pelletier asked her sister to phone a social worker about the situation. Her children were immediately seized by Social Services, and Pelletier attended court to identify them. As soon as she did, they were taken out of the courtroom. That was the last time she saw them for the next 14 years.
“What could I do? I was a broken person,” says Pelletier years later, sitting beside Roberta in Michelle’s home.
The events are still traumatic for Pelletier.
“This is really hard,” she says, tears coming to her eyes. Roberta, who was separated from her mother for so many years, leans in close to comfort her.
“I didn’t need my children to be taken. I needed help from an abusive relationship. That’s what I needed,” says Pelletier. “Taking my children away just made everything worse for me and my children.”
Back then, as Pelletier was left to wonder what had become of her children, their pictures were running in the Assiniboia Times.
“They were advertised in the paper like animals, and they were treated like animals, like slaves on the farm,” says Pelletier. “Now who does that? Who does that to children?”

Michelle St. Germaine in a photo taken on Aug. 2, 2017 (left) next to a photo of her when she was two-years-old that appeared in an adoption ad placed by the Adopt Indian Metis Program that appeared in the Sept. 20, 1967 issue of the Assiniboia Times

In 1981, she ran her own ad, this one in the Western Producer, to find her children. The ad appeared in a Thursday issue, and by Sunday, Roberta had called her.  
After getting to know their mother, the siblings came to understand what had happened when they were children. And Pelletier learned what her children had gone through on the farm.
“They told me a lot of sad stories of the way they were treated. And that was my greatest hurt — wondering how are my kids being treated, are they being loved, hoping that they weren’t being abused,” she says.
Pelletier had tried to learn how her children were doing after they’d been adopted. She made an appointment with a family service bureau in the city. She recalls being told her children were fine, and that her daughters were studying ballet.
When she finally met her children as adults, Pelletier was once again living with her partner, Robert. But Michelle and her siblings were only able to know their father for five years before he passed away from lung cancer.
Michelle and her father never spoke of her adoption, but she knows he was hurt by not seeing his children grow up.
“I’m thankful that I got to meet my dad, and I’m thankful that we got to meet our mom and now we do know what family is like,” says Michelle. “Before, we never really knew.”
Michelle has her birth father’s last name, as she had no desire to use that of her adopted father.
While Michelle was fortunate enough to start a relationship with her parents later in life, many children of the Sixties Scoop are not so lucky. For many survivors, Maurice included, those lost relationships are never recovered.
“I’ve met my biological mom and my half-brother, and I can count on one hand the number of conversations we’ve had,” says Maurice.

A TROUBLED NEXT GENERATION

Michelle was asleep when Social Services workers knocked on her door to tell her they were taking custody of her children.
She lived in a house in Regina without proper locks on the door, so she had stuck knives into the door to keep it shut. Her children, toddlers at the time, had crossed the street and rolled down a hill.
Michelle was ultimately handcuffed because she kept trying to take her children out of the social workers’ car.
During her 20s, Michelle hardly communicated with her mother. She temporarily moved to Calgary with her partner. The two became involved drugs, and Michelle worked in the sex trade.
Michelle and her partner were hooked on the street drug “T and Rs.” Also known as “poor man’s heroin,” the pills Talwin and Ritalin were crushed and mixed with water, then injected.
She built up a long criminal record, involving thefts and fraud, to support their habit.
Michelle’s children were continually moved in and out of foster care. She was serving time in jail when her second son was born in 2002.
Watching her daughter struggle with a life of drugs and crime was devastating for Pelletier.
“You want to see your children doing good for themselves. You don’t want to see your children being failures,” says Pelletier.
Michelle’s youngest son was taken into foster care when he was four years old. She didn’t regain custody of him until he was 11.
When Michelle did get a chance to visit with her children, she would constantly inspect them for bruises, fearful they would experience the same abuse she did.
Michelle’s husband, Gabrielle, passed away in 2009 from a leaky heart valve, which she attributes partially to his drug use. Pelletier believes it was his death that motivated her daughter to get clean.
On Oct. 5, 2013, Social Services closed Michelle’s file. She had been clean for four years.
“I was just tired. I didn’t want to live like that anymore cause you have no purpose, no goals,” says Michelle. “I wanted to live for my kids and be an example to them.”
Michelle now has a much more stable life, living Regina with two of her children. Terry and Roberta also live in Regina, while Denise passed away from breast cancer in 2010. She was 49.
Roberta is confident that her sisters would have known a more peaceful life sooner had she been raised by their real mother, and believes the proof is in Michelle’s oldest son.
“She raised Michelle’s little boy, and he turned out really good. He doesn’t drink, he doesn’t do drugs, he’s a really good boy. And I wish we were raised by her because that’s the way we would have turned out,” says Roberta.
Instead, Michelle grew up in a home she described as having “no love.” And that was when it was at its best. She and Roberta remember feeling a sense of relief when their adopted father had one of his hands disfigured by an auger.
“He got his hand taken away so he couldn’t hit us anymore,” said Michelle.
The moments of peace she remembers aren’t with her adopted parents. Instead, they came from riding her horse out into the fields, where she and her siblings would build fires and camp out for days, only sneaking back onto the farm to take food from the garden.
The St. Germaines do occasionally have contact with their adopted mother, who they say still refutes that any abuse took place.
While travelling outside the city with her brother last summer, Michelle decided to make a stop at the farm where they lived.  She wanted to see the evergreens that they had planted all those years ago. They’re now fully-grown.
No one was home, so Michelle and Terry stood at the foot of the dirt driveway for a few minutes and took pictures.
Standing in front of the farm where she endured so much pain was surreal for Michelle. Asked why she wanted to visit a place that held such terrible memories, Michelle says there were still some moments shared by the siblings that she wanted to acknowledge.
Just like the fires the St. Germaines would build during their temporary escapes from the farm, their love for each other provided warmth in a home devoid of the tenderness that parents provide.
“I had to take a moment to kind of push aside the bad and be grateful that the farm was still intact,” says Michelle. “Even though there was bad memories there, there was still good memories amongst us four.”
mmelnychuk@postmedia.com