R.R. VANCOUVER ABORIGINAL CHILD AND FAMILY SERVICES SOCIETY WEST COAST LEAF

By the end of the 1970s, the transfer of children from residential schools was nearly complete in southern Canada, and the impact of the Sixties Scoop was in evidence across the country. [...] In 1977, Aboriginal children accounted for 44% of the children in care in Alberta, 51% of the children in care in Saskatchewan, and 60% of the children in care in Manitoba. [...] The residential school legacy can in turn be understood in two interconnected ways: through the negative effects of the residential school experience on survivors and their descendants, and through the continuity of the colonial project and anti- Indigenous racism from residential schools to the modern child welfare system. [...] As quoted in the MMIWG Report, Cindy Blackstock observed of the linkages between colonialism, anti-Indigenous racism, and the child welfare system: It’s really the whole roots of colonialism, where you create this dichotomy between the savage, that being Indigenous peoples, and the civilized, that being the colonial forces…if you’re savage, you can’t look after the land, and so the civilized have. [...] For example, with respect to the best interests of the child test under the CFCSA, the WoW Guidebook observes: When the standard of the “best interests of the child” is applied, Indigenous Peoples have reason for caution.