For Métis siblings Robert Doucette and Eileen Rheindel, a long-awaited court ruling has brought both hope and heartbreak.
On April 29, 2025, Justice Sébastien Grammond of the Federal Court ruled that Canada had a legal duty of care toward Métis and non-status Indian children adopted through the federally funded “Adopt Indian Métis” (AIM) program in Saskatchewan between 1967 and 1969.
Those children, like Rheindel, may now be eligible for compensation.
But children like Robert, who were taken before the AIM program began, will be left out.
“You know, I cried, and I’m going to cry again because… we all equally sufferred,” said Doucette, who was taken from his family in 1962. “We all went through the pain of losing our families,” Doucette said through tears. “It’s gonna take a while to try and work through this. But I guess the march for justice never really ends.”
The AIM program, part of what’s now known as the 60s Scoop, saw Indigenous children removed from their families and placed in non-Indigenous homes, severing their cultural and familial ties.
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This latest ruling confirms that Canada holds responsibility for those caught in AIM’s narrow time frame.
For Robert and others like him, it’s a painful technicality.
“Same home, same losses, just different years,” Doucette said. “My sisters might be eligible. I’m not. It’s a victory, but it’s a loss too.”
His sister Eileen Rheindel echoed the heartbreak.
“It’s the acknowledgment that he’s missing that matters,” she said. “We’re still broken. No amount of money can fix what was taken from us, our identities, our families, our childhoods.”
The lawsuit, spearheaded by Doucette and Rheindel, launched in 2018, with a goal of bringing justice for Métis and non-status survivors excluded from a 2017 settlement with First Nations and Inuit survivors of the Scoop.
Now, the federal government is expected to negotiate next steps with class counsel. But Robert says the fight isn’t over, especially for those left behind by this judgment.
He’s calling on the Saskatchewan government to step up and recognize its role, too.
“We’re going to keep pushing,” said Doucette. “This cycle of erasure, of piecemeal justice has to end.”
For the siblings, the ruling is a start. But justice, full justice, still feels out of reach.
“Maybe I’ll never get an apology,” said Doucette. “But my sister might. And that means something.”
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