Millennium Scoop Class Action Hearing Set to Begin on October 7, 2024 in Vancouver, BC

VANCOUVER, BC, Oct. 7, 2024 /CNW/ - On Monday, October 7, 2024, the Supreme Court of British Columbia will begin hearing submissions on an application on behalf of British Columbia's Indigenous child welfare survivors against Canada and the Province of British Columbia for systematically discriminating against Indigenous children in British Columbia.

Canada and British Columbia strongly oppose the claim by the Indigenous child welfare survivors and ask the Court to strike it.

The number of Indigenous children in state care in the past three decades eclipses the number of children in Indian residential schools at their peak in Canada. The action alleges that the discrimination in the child welfare system has occurred for decades for First Nation children who reside off-reserve in British Columbia and for Métis and Inuit children in British Columbia. The plaintiffs allege that the governments' discrimination was systemic, causing the gross overrepresentation of Indigenous children in British Columbia's child welfare system. These Indigenous children were severed from their families and communities, causing widespread harm.

Canada has recently entered into an historic settlement of a national class action, but that settlement only applies to on-reserve First Nations children. Despite the fact that children removed off-reserve are no less Indigenous, no less overrepresented in the child welfare system, and no less harmed, they were not included in the settlement.

The vast majority of Indigenous children removed and placed into government care in this province are off-reserve Indigenous children - an already vulnerable group - many of whom descend from residential school survivors and Sixties Scoop survivors. This action relies on both governments' constitutional, legal and human rights obligations to Indigenous children living off-reserve.

One of the survivors of this system and a plaintiff in the action, Laura Dobson, states:

"Being taken away from my family, then completely stripped of my culture has caused us a lot of confusion. I was emotionally, spiritually, and physically abused from a very young age while in care. I would always try to display good behaviour, hoping that somebody would actually want to keep me. But I got slapped and shoved around a lot. As a child, I had no stability. I had no connection to my family or my culture. I felt lost."

The hearing will begin at 10:00am on Monday, October 7, 2024 at the Supreme Court of British Columbia in Vancouver, BC at 800 Hornby Street.

SOURCE Murphy Battista LLP

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