'The door's been slammed shut on me': Sixties Scoop survivor from N.S. denied compensation

Debbie Paul sits at the kitchen table at her home in Sipekne'katik First Nation, N.S., and combs through her Sixties Scoop folder — a collection of legal documents, letters and faded photos of herself as a child at the former Shubenacadie Indian Residential School.

The folder holds a paper trail of Paul's journey. She has been looking justice for years, and a letter she got last week makes her feel like she is no closer to a resolution after all her work. 

"Now it seems like my validation, they took it away from me," Paul said.

The letter is a final rejection from the Sixties Scoop Class Action Settlement agreement, meant to grant personal settlements to "Status Indian" and Inuit children, who were taken or "scooped" from their parents and communities between 1951 and 1991. They were put into the care of non-Indigenous families, became Crown wards or were placed in permanent care settings.

Paul points to the words "official rejection" and "no action possible." Those words stand out at the top of a one-page letter.

"The door's been slammed shut on me," she said. "I have no recourse. This is Canada. We're supposed to be a free country. I should be able to appeal that decision."

In 2018, Paul applied to the Sixties Scoop class action settlement agreement.

According to the Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada web page, "Eligible class members will receive an estimated $25,000 in compensation for harm suffered as a result of their experiences in the Sixties Scoop."

When applications closed in December 2019, 34,770 people had applied. As of last month, 19,822 claims had been approved. An additional 10,251 claims have been denied with no right to appeal.

In 2020, Paul's claim was rejected for the first time.

She was told she had no proof that she was kidnapped by a nun when the Shubenacadie institution closed in 1967 and brought to live with a white family in Massachusetts for a year. She says that throughout that year she was abused and forced to act as the family's housekeeper, then sent back to Nova Scotia alone with no explanation. 

After Paul travelled to the U.S. in November 2021, she found proof that traced her back to Rockland, Mass. She sent in every official document she could gather, and appealed the rejection with no legal help.

Then came the March 2022 letter.

The reason for the final rejection is listed as the inability to confirm that Paul was placed in "long-term care" with non-Indigenous guardians.