Ideas from the CBC: Returning Warriors

In a landmark decision, the Supreme Court of Canada awarded custody of an Indigenous girl to her foster family, rejecting pleas from the birth mother to return the child to her. That 1983 ruling — which asserted that psychological bonding trumps biology and cultural heritage, opened the door for more Indigenous children to be adopted into non-Indigenous homes. The judges asserted that the significance of Leticia Racine's culture would ''abate over time." The story of the ruling and its impact on Leticia, who was put back into the child welfare system as a teen, is told in the new CBC Podcast, See You in Court. IDEAS examines the journey that she and other "returning warriors" of the 60s Scoop have taken to reclaim identities that colonial policies and courts denied them.