WINNIPEG — Federal Indigenous Affairs Minister Carolyn Bennett says she’d like to see a lawsuit over the ’60s Scoop taken out of court and discussed at a table.
The scoop between the 1960s and the 1980s saw thousands of aboriginal children taken from their homes by child-welfare services and placed with non-aboriginal families.
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Lawsuits, including one before the courts in Ontario, claim the result was a devastating loss of cultural identity.
Five aboriginal leaders wrote to the prime minister this week and called on the federal government to apologize for the scoop and settle the lawsuit quickly.
The Manitoba government apologized last year for its role in the scoop.
RELATED: ’60s Scoop: ‘They didn’t give my family a chance’
Bennett says the government wants to work with the litigants to find an agreement, but the letter from aboriginal leaders says Ottawa has delayed the court case for several years.