Research Paper on the Sixties Scoop Settlement

Explaining the Sixties Scoop Settlement and Its Context

1. Write a research paper on the Sixties Scoop Settlement. You will need to convey the pertinent information about the settlement itself – how, what, how, why – but also form an argument about the Settlement, e.g. its relative merits + weaknesses, the broader context of the ongoing Millennium Scoop and TRC Calls to Action. Do your research to learn about different positions on the settlement from multiple perspectives. Consider including how the culpability of the state is defined here and the different conceptions of justice at play.
You may write this as a formal research paper or as letter to the newspaper(choose one and address your audience accordingly), advocating to the public and politicians for the need to commit to more widespread allocation of resources – in addition to the individual payouts – to deal with the web of issues Sixties Scoop created (and exacerbated) in Indigenous societies.
2. Write a paper about resistance to the child welfare system: what has it looked like over time? You may choose one period in particular to write about - Indian Residential Schools (IRS), Sixties Scoop or the Millennium Scoop – or link these forms of resistance together by focusing on two or more. For example, Lillian Semaganis joins the Saskatchewan Women’s Association to fight the AIM program – you could write about this organization. Or you could look at arguments made for control over child welfare during this period and compare to Indigenous advocacy movements today. Make sure you provide a good analysis of the child apprehension programs you are focusing on, in order to stongly position the resistance taken in response.
3. What does the research say about the relationship between the high incarceration rates of Indigenous peoples and the child welfare system (including IRS, Sixties Scoop, and the Millennium Scoop)? Write a paper that analyzes how state violence intersects with issues such as income, gender, race, and the settlement of Indigenous lands. Choose one issue or provide compelling research on the intersection of two or more factors. Answer the same question but do so in a letter to a judge who is considering the application of Gladue principles in regard to Indigenous offenders who come before her. What should she understand about racism, intergenerational trauma, etc. and the child welfare system that may explain why so many Indigenous people appear before her in the court? What other remedies should be considered?
4. In Episode 4, Johnny Semaganis says he has been affected by ‘the trifecta’ – Sixties Scoop, Residential Schools, Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG) – phenomenon that have been named in government commissions and legal decisions as processes of “culturalgenocide.” Define this term and discuss the child welfare system from this perspective.