The Manitoba government is set to apologize for their role in the "sixties scoop" practice, but the president of the Manitoba Metis Federation says more work needs to be done to help the victims.
David Chartrand says there needs to be more counseling available and their needs to be a willingness for counselors to help people in small rural communities where most of the abductions took place, instead of making people travel to urban centres.
"They'd leave the families to try and drive all these great distances, some of them don't have cars and they have to hire someone to take them from say Duck Bay to Dauphin to go get services. That can't happen. There has to be a real good plan here. You're opening up some scars and a lot of pain and a lot of hurt. You have to figure out how you start dealing with these things."
Chartrand says because the practice was so widespread, trying to reconnect all the affected families will be a difficult process.
"There's a lot of bonding that has to take place here and a lot of rebuilding between the families that has to happen. There's so many out there, we don't know where they are. I know they changed the legislation where anybody 18 and over has the right to see their files now. That may give us some leverage to start finding more in the United States and wherever else in Canada that the children were sold to."
Chartrand says there may be lots of children who were taken from their families that they may never find because of how long the practice lasted.
