Whereas the Sixties Scoop refers to the forcible removal of thousands of Aboriginal children from their families and communities, a Provincial strategy of assimilation that saw Aboriginal children placed in care and adopted to non-native families beginning in 1951 and continuing until the mid-1980s; And whereas in his 1985 report on Aboriginal child apprehension and the Sixties Scoop, Manitoba Provincial Justice Edwin Kimelman referenced the UN Genocide Convention of 1948 concluding that cultural genocide has taken place in a systematic, routine manner.; And whereas the governments of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta have all since apologized to the survivors of the Sixties Scoop: Therefore be it resolved that UBCM request the province of British Columbia make a formal apology to the communities, families and survivors of the Sixties Scoop.
Ministry of Children and Family On October 26, 2022 Premier John Horgan stated that on behalf of the government of today that we will acknowledge and atone for the wrongs in the child welfare system and will engage with Indigenous peoples to come up with the appropriate language to ensure that we recognize and atone for the sins of the past, not of those who are here today but those who were here before us. Government is interested in engaging with the Indigenous Peoples of this Province to determine what an appropriate apology for the harms caused by the child welfare system would look like. This would require an engagement process to ensure that we are hearing directly from communities, families and survivors of the Sixties Scoop as well as those affected by the child welfare system. As part of the Declaration Act Action Plan, government will engage with communities to ensure this is an action Indigenous Peoples would like government to focus on and include as one of the commitments in the Declaration Act Action Plan. Declaration Act Action Plan URL: https:www2.gov.bc.cagovcontentgovernmentsindigenous-peoplenew-relations….