Residential Schools, Relocations and the Sixties Scoop

Before we begin

This lesson is about government policies that harmed First Nations, Inuit and Métis children, families and communities between 1945 and 1982: residential schools, forced relocations and the Sixties Scoop. Read it with a grown-up if you can. It is okay to feel sad or angry.

It is also important to remember that First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples are living, strong communities today. They resisted these policies, protected their languages and cultures, and are leading their own healing. The next lesson focuses on how they organized and won important rights in this period.

If you or someone you know needs support, talk to a trusted adult. The Hope for Wellness Help Line (1-855-242-3310) offers support to Indigenous people across Canada, 24 hours a day.

Remember from Grade 8

In Grade 8 you learned that the Indian Act (1876) gave the federal government enormous control over First Nations lives, and that the residential school system began in the 1880s with the goal of assimilation: separating children from their families, languages and cultures. In this lesson you will see that these policies continued after 1945, while some new policies added further harm.

Some changes after 1945

After the Second World War, many Canadians knew that First Nations veterans had served in the war but came home to unequal treatment. A parliamentary committee reviewed the Indian Act from 1946 to 1948, and the Act was amended in 1951:

• The bans on the potlatch, the sun dance and other ceremonies were removed, and so was the ban on raising money to pursue land claims.
• But most of the government's control remained, and the goal of assimilation did not change.
• A new section (numbered section 87 in 1951 and known today as section 88) said that provincial laws of general application applied to First Nations people on reserves. This opened the door for provincial child welfare agencies to enter First Nations communities (see the Sixties Scoop, below).

The vote: Inuit gained the right to vote in federal elections in 1950, although ballot boxes did not reach many Arctic communities until 1962. Status First Nations people gained the federal vote in 1960, under Prime Minister Diefenbaker, without having to give up their status. (Quebec, in 1969, was the last province to extend the provincial vote.)

Disc numbers: from the early 1940s, the federal government gave Inuit identification disc numbers (often called "E-numbers") instead of using their names. Many Inuit had to wear the disc or carry the number. Project Surname (1968–1971), led by Inuk leader Abraham Okpik, replaced the numbers with surnames.

Forced relocations

In the 1950s, the federal government moved several Indigenous communities, often without real consent.

• The High Arctic relocation (1953 and 1955): the government moved Inuit families from Inukjuak in northern Quebec (and some from Pond Inlet) about 2 000 km north to Grise Fiord and Resolute in the High Arctic. They were promised they could return after two years if they wished; that promise was not kept. The land, animals and long dark winters were very different from home, and families suffered hunger and hardship. Historians and Inuit leaders say one goal was to show Canadian sovereignty in the Arctic during the Cold War. Canada apologized in 2010.
• The Sayisi Dene (1956) in northern Manitoba were moved to the edge of Churchill, where many lived in poverty and lost their way of life. Manitoba and Canada later apologized.
• In the North more broadly, as Inuit were encouraged or pressured to move into permanent settlements in the 1950s and 1960s, many sled dogs were killed, often by police. For Inuit, this took away their means of travel and hunting and made families dependent on the settlements. In 2019 Canada apologized to Qikiqtani Inuit for the dog killings and relocations.

Residential schools continue

The residential school system did not end in 1945. In the 1950s the government expanded schools and student hostels in the North, so many Inuit and northern First Nations and Métis children were sent far from home for the first time. From the late 1940s, some First Nations children began attending provincial schools, but residential schools continued for decades.

In 1969 the federal government took over management of the schools from the churches. Schools began closing in the 1970s, but the last federally supported school did not close until 1996.

Chanie Wenjack: in October 1966, Chanie (Charlie) Wenjack, a 12-year-old Anishinaabe boy, ran away from the Cecilia Jeffrey Indian Residential School in Kenora, Ontario. He tried to walk home to his family at Ogoki Post, about 600 km away. He died of hunger and exposure beside a railway line. An inquest looked into his death, and in 1967 a Maclean's magazine article by journalist Ian Adams, "The Lonely Death of Charlie Wenjack", brought his story to readers across Canada. Today his story is remembered through the Gord Downie & Chanie Wenjack Fund and books and music.

The Sixties Scoop

The Sixties Scoop is the name for the mass removal of First Nations, Métis and Inuit children from their families by child welfare agencies, from the 1950s into the 1980s, usually without the consent of their families or communities. An estimated 20 000 or more children were taken. Most were placed with non-Indigenous families in Canada, the United States and even overseas.

• Social workers often judged Indigenous families by outside standards. Poverty, crowded housing and different ways of raising children (such as care by grandparents and extended family) were treated as neglect.
• Children lost contact with their families, communities, languages and cultures. Many did not learn they were Indigenous, or which Nation they belonged to, until they were adults. Many experienced racism and some experienced abuse in their new homes.
• The term "Sixties Scoop" was used by researcher Patrick Johnston in a 1983 report, quoting a social worker.
• Survivors organized and went to court. In 2017 an Ontario court ruled that Canada had failed in its duty to protect the cultural identity of First Nations children taken in Ontario, and the federal government reached a settlement with survivors. Manitoba apologized in 2015, and other provinces followed.