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Millennium Scoop Indigenous class action overview:
- Who: The Federal Court of Canada certified a class action against the Canadian government brought on behalf of off-reserve Indigenous children and families.
- Why: The families seek recourse for the Millennium Scoop and the harms of the broken child welfare system.
- Where: The case was filed in the Federal Court of Canada.
The Federal Court of Canada gave the green light to a class action lawsuit against the Canadian government brought on behalf of off-reserve Indigenous children and families who say the government discriminated against them and harmed them amid the Millennium Scoop.
From the 1950s to ’80s, the Sixties Scoop saw countless Indigenous children taken from their families and given to non-Indigenous homes. The Millennium Scoop refers to the period that followed in which Indigenous children continued to be taken from their homes under the foster care system,according to a press release from Murphy Battista LLP, the law firm representing the Indigenous families.
Now, the Federal Court of Canada has issued a landmark decision, certifying a class action brought against the federal government on behalf of off-reserve Indigenous children harmed by the scoop and the broken child welfare system, the press release says.
“The Federal Court’s decision is historic and signals an important shift in the law,” Angela Bespflug, one of the lawyers representing the class, says in the press release. “Despite Canada’s constitutional responsibility for all Indigenous people, Canada has repeatedly failed to take steps to protect the Indigenous identity of off-reserve children who were put into care. The Court’s decision signals that Canada may finally be held to account for that. But we still have a long way to go.”
Canada opposes the class action.
‘Millennium Scoop’ class action follows 2016 decision on on-reserve children
The Millennium Scoop class action lawsuit comes after the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal found in 2016 that Canada was discriminating against on-reserve First Nation children through discriminatory funding practices, according to the press release.
In December last year, Canada finally negotiated a $40 billion Agreement in Principle to compensate on-reserve children for that alleged discrimination. The current case deals discrimination against First Nation children living off-reserve.
“It is fundamentally wrong that Canada has agreed to compensate on-reserve children while leaving off-reserve children out in the cold,” Bespflug says in the press release.
Due to the atrocities of the residential school system and federal policies that perpetuated “cultural genocide,” Indigenous children are vastly overrepresented in the child welfare system, the lawsuit alleges.
Meanwhile, representatives of those who suffered harm at federally run Indian day schools are questioning the way the compensation process is being handled after the federal government signed a $1.47 billion settlement with victims.
What do you think of the certification of this class action lawsuit? Let us know in the comments!
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