Commemorate National Day for Truth and Reconciliation with keynote speaker Betty Ann Adam, cultural performances, and opportunities to learn, reflect, and support reconciliation
This is an in-person program. This program takes place on the Mezzanine of the Central Library.
Join us for an inspiring event led by keynote speaker Betty Ann Adam, a writer, an award-winning journalist, screenwriter and co-chair, Sixties Scoop Indigenous Society of Saskatchewan. She is a member of Fond du Lac Denesuline Nation, an intergenerational survivor of the Indian Residential School system and a child of the Sixties Scoop.
Betty Ann’s presentation will focus on the true-life story behind the movie Meadowlarks.
Betty Ann will give a brief history of her experience of being scooped, being a foster child, and finding her family and identity. She’ll explain how her experience as a journalist led to her accepting the direction of Truth and Reconciliation Commissioner Marie Wilson, who told her that documenting her siblings’ first gathering could help viewers to understand the Sixties Scoop and its on-going effect on thousands of Indigenous Canadians. Betty Ann is still amazed that it all led to a movie that people were watching on WestJet!
This special gathering will also feature an opening blessing, greetings from RPL leadership, a powerful drum honour song, and a vibrant jingle dance performance, followed by bannock and tea with the community.
Presenter Information:
Journalist Betty Ann Adam is a member of Fond du Lac Denesuline Nation, an intergenerational survivor of the Indian Residential School system, and a child of the Sixties Scoop.
She is the Executive Producer of the 2025 feature film, Meadowlarks, which was inspired by her personal experience.
She was a reporter on the Spotify Gimlet podcast Stolen: Surviving St. Michael’s, hosted by Connie Walker. That investigation into abuse at a Saskatchewan Indian Residential School won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize in Audio Reporting, the Peabody Award and the Dupont Columbia award.
While a staff reporter with the Saskatoon Star Phoenix for 29 years, she received the 2018 Canadian Association of Journalists award for outstanding journalism in long text form.
She co-wrote, with director Tasha Hubbard, the 2017 National Film Board of Canada documentary, Birth of a Family, about the first gathering of her and her siblings.
As a member of the Sixties Scoop Indigenous Society of Saskatchewan, she was Executive Producer of Everything Is Connected, a 2021 film about the overlap between Sixties Scoop and MMIWG.
She was associate editor at Eagle Feather News from 2019 to 2021.
Meadowlarks Screening
RPL Film Theatre will screen the movie, Meadowlarks, on September 24 at 7:00pm.
Meadowlarks, a Canadian film, follows four Cree siblings, torn apart by the Sixties Scoop, who reunite for one week. The movie was inspired by Betty Ann Adam’s documentary film, Birth of a Family, which recorded the first gathering of her and her siblings. Meadowlarks and Birth of a Family was directed by Tasha Hubbard.
AGE GROUP: | Adults |
EVENT TYPE: | Special Events | Indigenous |
TAGS: | Indigenous | Artist and Author Talks |
Central Library, the largest of the nine Branches in the Regina Public Library system, is a social and informational hub in the heart of downtown Regina. The Library maintains an extensive calendar of programs, training opportunities, art exhibits in the Dunlop Art Gallery, along with film screenings in the Library's very own repertory film theatre!
