The siblings of a Métis man who has been lacking for many years — ever since he was apprehended as a toddler through the Sixties Scoop — wish to know why the Manitoba authorities retains sending him a verification of tackle request, mailed to the very house the province seized him from greater than 45 years in the past.
“All these years later, even when my dad and mom are deceased, his [health] card remains to be coming to the mail,” stated Sandra Myers. “Someone is aware of one thing.”
Her brother, Alex James Sutherland, was simply 5 years previous when baby welfare officers seized him, together with his six siblings, from their Camperville, Man., house in 1976.
It was a part of the notoriously devastating Sixties Scoop — which noticed hundreds of Indigenous youngsters forcibly faraway from their properties and positioned with non-Indigenous households as distant because the U.S. and Europe, throughout a interval stretching from 1951 to 1991.
Alex and his siblings, together with Myers, had been seized underneath false pretences, they are saying. Baby welfare officers claimed their father drank an excessive amount of and the youngsters had been abused.
“I’m type of shocked,” Myers stated. “I don’t keep in mind no abuse.”
Their mom, in the meantime, thought the apprehensions had been momentary and agreed to signal a doc permitting baby welfare officers to vaccinate the youngsters.
As an alternative, she signed away her rights as a guardian.
“My mother couldn’t learn or write, they usually gave her a paper and pen,” stated Sutherland’s sister, Marj McGillivray. “She didn’t even know she was signing us away.”
A curious clue
Three of the siblings, together with Myers, had been adopted in Louisiana. McGillivray remained in Manitoba, bounced between foster properties till she was reunited along with her dad and mom as a teen.
Alex Sutherland, nevertheless, was by no means heard from once more.
“I hear from the opposite ones, however this one, he’s simply gone,” McGillivray says.
In 2016, the siblings went public with their search, sharing their story with CBC.
By the years, because the story circulated, so did the information. A few childhood buddies reached out with recollections of going to highschool with Alex in Mafeking, Man.
The siblings later heard rumours that Alex was in Thompson, Man. One other time, they heard he could be in Alberta. One other time, Ontario.
Then, just a few years in the past, a curious clue arrived of their dad and mom’ publish workplace field.
The province started sending out well being card registration verifications addressed to Alex James Sutherland — despatched to his childhood house in Camperville.
As of 2023, they’re nonetheless coming.
“That’s why my mother and pa thought he was nonetheless alive and in Manitoba,” stated McGillivray.
Now, the household needs to know why a provincial division is sending mail to Sutherland’s childhood house — as if it was, so far as the province is worried, his final recognized tackle.
‘I’m not giving up hope’
In a written assertion, a provincial spokesperson stated if an individual hasn’t used their Manitoba Well being card prior to now 12 months, the province sends a verification discover to the final tackle it has on file, “to make sure their tackle remains to be present and there are not any new adjustments to their well being card,” the spokesperson stated.
If the discover comes again marked “return to sender,” the well being card is suspended, in line with the spokesperson.
They’d not elaborate on whether or not they would ship out a verification for a well being card that had been inactive for greater than 12 months.
“We’re moving into hypotheticals right here, which we will’t touch upon,” the emailed assertion stated.
The Manitoba Métis Federation, in the meantime, additionally has questions on Sutherland, and has supplied to assist the household discover the solutions.
The federation is “joyful to work with the household to get the underside of this,” stated northwest area vice-president Frances Chartrand in a written assertion.
“We’re at all times saddened once we be taught of Sixties Scoop survivors in our area who’ve nonetheless not discovered their method house.”
The Métis Federation, via its Sixties Scoop division, can present the household with “wraparound packages and providers … tailor-made to the wants of particular person survivors,” stated Chartrand.
Myers stated she’d be glad about the federation’s assist.
“If something may assist to search out him, I’ll be glad,” she stated.
“I by no means stopped trying to find him. I’m not giving up hope. I do know he’s on the market.”
She additionally had a message for her brother.
“I’m reaching out to you and for those who can hear this, look me up on Fb,” Myers says. “And know that I’m not giving up till I discover you or know the place you’re at.”