Dr. Cody Groat shared a deeply personal and powerful presentation about the Sixties Scoop through the story of his late father, Bill Groat. About 45 people attended this moving presentation. Thank you staff of Glencoe Library for working with the historical society to build a wonderful partnership.
A survivor of this dark chapter in Canadian history, Bill was a Kanyen’kehaka (Mohawk) child raised in a foster home in Newbury, Ontario, before returning to his biological parents—survivors of the Indian Residential School System—in London, Ontario.
Patrick Johnston, a researcher for the Canadian Council on Social Development, first used the term “Sixties Scoop” in his 1983 report on Indigenous children in the child welfare system, entitled Native Children and the Child Welfare System. In the report, Johnston describes the large-scale apprehension of Indigenous children in the 1960s from their homes, communities and families of birth — often without their parents’ or band’s consent — and their subsequent adoption into predominantly non-Indigenous families across the United States and Canada. The Sixties Scoop was not an isolated event propelled by inferior Indigenous parenting, but rather an extension of paternalistic policies in Canada that sought the assimilation of Indigenous cultures and communities. Ref: The Canadian Encyclopedia
Dr. Groat is an Assistant Professor in the Department of History and Indigenous Studies at Western University, and a citizen of the Kanyen’kehaka nation and Six Nations of the Grand River Reserve. In 2025, he received the King Charles III Coronation Medal for his work promoting Canadian heritage.
Check out Dr. Groat commenting on the return of items from the Vatican: https://youtu.be/MBx30UPx2jM?si=yb779M12tfELPxil. He talks with APTN’s Creeson Agecoutay about the Indigenous artifacts coming into Canada from the Vatican.
Also, here is more of his work:
https://woodlandculturalcentre.ca/media-release-unesco-residential-schools-gathering/.
Thanks for coming everyone. And thank you for sharing your incredible life journey stories.
Mary Simpson, G&DHS Programming
