At least 45,000 Canadians could become status Indians under a new law proposed by the federal government.
Indian Affairs minister Chuck Strahl tabled the Gender Equity in Indian Registration Act in the House of Commons last week. The bill, made in response to a B.C. court decision, is the first major change to the federal Indian Act since 1985.
If passed, the bill would let the women who lost Indian status by marrying a non-Indian prior to 1985 pass their status onto their grandkids. (Men can under the current law, but women can't.) No one will lose status as a result of this change.
This act rectifies a long-standing, blatant example of gender inequality in the Indian Act, says Brent Rathgeber, member of Parliament for Edmonton-St. Albert. "It doesn't solve all the problems with respect to the registry system, but it certainly provides remedial satisfaction to that one problem."
The status question
"Indian" is a specific legal status that carries with it certain rights, notes James Dempsey of the University of Alberta faculty of native studies, and is distinct from "aboriginal," which refers to anyone of First Nation, Métis, or Inuit descent. The federal government has legal obligations to status Indians, but not all aboriginals.
The last major change to the Indian Act was in 1985, Dempsey says. Before then, women lost Indian status whenever they married someone who wasn't status. Men did not. The passage of Bill C-31 fixed that problem, but only for one generation — unlike men, women could pass their status on to their kids, but not grandkids.
In April 2009, the B.C. Court of Appeal ruled that certain sections of the Indian Act were unconstitutional as they violated the gender equity rules of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The court gave the federal government until April 6, 2010, to change the law before it would be struck down.
Under the proposed bill, any aboriginal could apply for Indian status if they were born on or after Sept. 4, 1951, if their grandmother lost status by marrying a non-Indian, and if their father or mother qualifies for or has status. About 45,000 people meet these requirements, according to the federal government.
The government has to pass this new bill, Rathgeber says, otherwise people could lose their Indian status once the court's ruling comes into effect. The bill has broad support from most parties, so he expected it would pass before the deadline.
Unsolved problems
But this doesn't completely solve the current problem, Dempsey says. "All you've done is added another generation to the possibility of status," he says — a woman's great-grandchildren could still lose it.
"Ultimately speaking … within six generations there will be no status members in Canada," he says, citing a recent study. "There will be no status Indians, but the lands and band members will still be there." That means federal obligations might be determined by band membership, which can vary wildly depending on the reserve.
This law could also put pressure on band budgets, he continues. About 117,000 people were reinstated as Indians after 1985, he notes, which put a strain on health and education funds — the federal government had budgeted for less than 60,000.
"There's no doubt that the cost of education went up," Dempsey says, "dramatically too." The federal government will have to make concessions in health and education funding as a result of this law.
The treasury will have to adjust the Indian Affairs budget to handle any new registrants, Rathgeber says. Strahl has also announced a broader consultation to deal with other issues of status.
