The Journal of the Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America October-December 2017 - 18

sTorIes oF PeaCemakers

The 60s Scoop: A Follow-Up
by Jacqueline Solomon

ditor's note: In the Spring 2017 issue of Baptist Peacemaker, we printed a story by jacqueline Solomon about
Chief Marcia Brown Martel and the "60s Scoop." This term
refers to the practice of taking (or "scooping up") Indigenous
children in canada from their families and placing them in
foster homes or with adoptive families. the practice began in
the 1960s and continued until the late 1980s. chief martel
brought a suit against the government. In the spring, a judge
ruled that the "scooped" children of Ontario were entitled
to more than $1 billion in damages. Below is a follow-up
interview with chief martel.
[my father] was a business man, wearing a suit and carrying
a suitcase. But when he had to get on a train, he paid the same
price of ticket, but got put in a boxcar-he had to sit on bales
of straw. They shouldn't have been there. Not only my father,
but all the First Nations peoples shouldn't have been there. It
should never have happened in Canada, but it has... They were
Indigenous peoples of this land and they were exploited and set
apart and treated in less than a human way. When one thinks
of Canada, Canada in the world doesn't look like a place where
that kind of exploitation toward humanity [happens]...that's
not how the world sees Canada.

arcia Brown martel, chief of the Beaverhouse First
Nation, knows the duplicity of Canada's "good guy"
image well. After nearly a decade-long court battle with the
government of canada, marcia won what she had fought for
so long. the court acknowledged that canada had failed in its
duty of care for its Indigenous children.
"When I think of Canada and the 150 years that Canada
has been a government in this country, I think of the relationship that First Nations people-my people-have had
with this government. It's been hard. there have been times
[of] intimidation and fear and being treated not as an equal
standing human being."

"Our own government robbed the First
Nations communities of their land, their
culture and their identity and-worst of
all-made people feel ashamed of their
own origins."
For generations, the canadian government acted in secret
with its First Nations people, making treaties it had no intention
of fulfilling and, all the while, removing
children from homes and rehousing them
in residential schools.
our own government robbed them of
their land, their culture and their identity and-worst of all-made people feel
ashamed of their own origins. In a socalled christian nation, where we know
that there is no male nor female, slave
nor free, jew nor greek, our nation has
systematically worked to undermine the
image of god in Indigenous people.
Even now, many First Nations comLeft: Marcia Martel (shown here
during a drum ceremony) is Chief of the
Beaverhouse First Nation in Ontario.
Photo courtsey of Canadian Baptists
of Ontario and Quebec.

18 Baptist Peacemaker

Oct-Dec 2017

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of The Journal of the Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America October-December 2017