Have you ever imagined living away from your family, culture, and language? Near the end of the residential schools, countless Indigenous children were forcibly taken away from their families, and we call this era the Sixties Scoop. This wounded the Indigenous community severely, and when considering both the short- and long-term impacts of the Sixties Scoop, Canada has been making efforts for sufficient reparations, but continuous actions are required.

   Before European settlers, Indigenous people lived where we now call Canada with their own distinctive way of life. Three major groups—Inuit, First Nations, and Métis—generally had a multi-generational family structure. Such a family structure formed their way of education; the children were taught by their families while Elders provided a spiritual guide, passing on their traditional cultures. Rather than attending school, children learned practical skills, such as hunting and fishing, and participated in unique cultural ceremonies, gaining insight into how to live “with” the land rather than on it. For them, education was not only their way of teaching how to survive and live, but also the vehicle to connect the new generations with their culture and the natural world around them spiritually. However, when European settlers arrived, they changed everything. The way Indigenous communities connected and coexisted with nature made it difficult for the settlers to conquer and take advantage of them. In response, they enacted the Indian Act, which controlled where and how the Indigenous people lived; their sacred ceremonies were banned, and residential schools took their children and tried to assimilate their identity. By 1951, the decline of the residential schools, unfortunately, didn’t bring the anticipated hope and relief to Indigenous communities; the amended Indian Act drew another knife under the necks of Indigenous families by taking a new form of assimilation rather than ending it: the Sixties Scoop.

   For the superficial purpose of putting Indigenous children in foster care, provincial child welfare agencies coercively took Indigenous children from their families and put them with non-Indigenous families. These children, under the Adopt Indian and Métis Program (AIM), were sent out of the province and even out of the country, to the United States, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Germany, India, etc. The Sixties Scoop resulted in both individual and cultural damages to the Indigenous people. First of all, individual children taken away were forced to be physically and completely disconnected from their birth families. Most of them were placed in a situation where it was simply impossible for young children to contact their families, let alone meet them physically. To make matters worse, some of the children were seriously abused by their foster family. One of the survivors recalled that her foster mother used to throw her in a tub and tell her that she was dirty because of her skin. She was four years old when she was abused like this, away from her home and family (Bomberry and Edwards, 2024, p. 46). Accumulatively, such individual adversities—abuses and the disconnection with their families—led to cultural damage to the Indigenous community as a whole. As David Smith, who shares his story of trying to find his cultural identity, stated on CBC, he was “adopted away and lost everything” (Harrison, 2022). The “everything” that he is trying to reclaim would not just mean tangible things. The “everything” he had lost would be such fundamental things for every person that we could not even imagine losing. We could not fathom what losing the opportunities to connect with our families, to communicate in our own language, to do things that mean a lot to us, and to learn about our family’s way of life would do to people, and ultimately, the community. The Sixties Scoop not only separated families and left countless children in an identity crisis, but it also disrupted the Indigenous communities’ connectedness with each other. Therefore, as Indigenous communities’ education relies heavily on communication between generations, we can conclude that the Sixties Scoop disturbed their way of education, which is a fundamental vehicle for them to pass down their traditions and culture.

   A similar cultural disconnection, due to coercive action, had been occurring on the other side of the globe. In 1910, the Japanese Empire forcibly annexed the Korean Empire through the Japan-Korea Annexation Treaty (Japan’s forced, n.d.). Similar to what happened to Indigenous communities, the Japanese government tried to assimilate Korean people into their culture. As part of this effort, Japan enacted and amended the Joseon Education Ordinance during its unjust rule of the Korean Peninsula; its purpose laid in spreading the Japanese language, exploiting Korean people’s labour, and keeping them ignorant (Son, n.d.). The Ordinance restricted and harmed the Korean education system, forbidding teachers and students from using the Korean language and teachers from educating Korean history. The Ordinance left a permanent scar on Korean culture; even today, after more than a century, the Korean language remains affected by educational disconnection caused by the Ordinance. For instance, the Korean word 기스 (ki-su), which means scratch, is derived from the Japanese word キズ (kizu), which also means scratch (Japanese words, 2015). In addition to this example, there are countless other Japanese-influenced words and idioms in the Korean language, now so seamlessly integrated that even native speakers may not be aware of their Japanese origins. Furthermore, disputes regarding Japan’s unjust rule continue to this day, with Japan both acknowledging and denying some of its atrocities (Lee, 2023). Such ambivalence, in addition to the permanent scar to the Korean culture and language, proves that Korean and Japanese people are in a never-ending ethnic war. Even if Japan acknowledges the holistic truth and makes reparations, the war will continue since it has already left a permanent scar, as we can see from the example of the Korean language. From the similarities between the Sixties Scoop and Korea’s history of annexation by Japan—the coerciveness and the kinds and effects of the harms done—we can infer that reparations for such actions to annihilate and assimilate a cultural identity would result in a perpetual conflict, and therefore, would also come with the necessity of everlasting reparations.

   Throughout the years, Canada has been trying to make reparations for the harms done to Indigenous communities during the Sixties Scoop. Provincial governments were the first to acknowledge and apologise for it. Premier Rachel Notley of Alberta stated that “for the loss of identity, of language and culture, [the government of Alberta] is sorry” (Bomberry and Edwards, 2024, p. 64). As of 2023, three provincial governments—of Alberta, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan—have apologised. In addition to the apologies, following the lawsuit led by Chief Marcia Martel, the Government of Canada agreed to the Sixties Scoop Settlement, which was to compensate First Nations and Inuit for the harms done. With the Métis people completely excluded, the Settlement accumulated a total of 21,123 approved claims and 13,541 denied ones by 2023. The Settlement was indeed a significant step forward in reparations and reconciliation, and it was followed by apology ceremonies, story sharing, and Indigenous studies, all aiming at healing the community. Despite their lack of inclusivity and accessibility, the reparations were sufficient since they acknowledged the past, compensated (most of) the harmed, and called for further actions to heal the wounds. Nonetheless, we must ask ourselves a fundamental question: can these kinds of wounds be healed in the first place at all? We have seen how Indigenous communities have been passing down their culture and tradition through communicational and connective education, and how the Sixties Scoop has disrupted it. Furthermore, to predict its long-term impact, we examined a precedent case of coercive cultural harm. Consequently, we can conclude that the kinds of wounds the Sixties Scoop has done to the Indigenous communities are practically irreversible.

   Indigenous people had their own ways in terms of life and education. The Sixties Scoop, by taking away children from their families against their will, caused utter destruction and disconnection from such ways of living. Even with the efforts for reparations, their sufficiency cannot be fully fulfilled, as reparations and compensations are predicted to be simply unable to restore the damaged culture to its original state, as already evident from the instance of the Korean language. Even the slightest effect of the Sixties Scoop, wherever it may be, will persist and prevail within Indigenous communities and their culture. Therefore, although Canada has been making sufficient reparations, continuous actions are required.