A New Non-Status Indian Population: The Culmination of Extermination Policy  

Contrary to popular belief, Bill C-3 1 has not relegated the concept of Non-Status Indian to the dust bin of history. It is true that that the Bill has induced a great number of former Non-Status Indians to apply for Indian Status, and, as previously noted, over 100,000 did obtain their Status cards. Since most of these C-31 Indians live off-reserve, the Status Indian population off-reserve has ballooned as a result of reinstatement. On a Canada-wide basis, the number of Status Indians off-reserve grew by 156% between 1984 and 1996, compared to a growth rate of only 42% for the on reserve population over the same period. [11] There are now some 256, 000 Status Indians living off-reserve in Canada; and a least half are C-31 Indians or children of C-31 Indians born since April 17, 1985. At the same time there was a noticeable reduction in the Non-Status Indian population of provinces, and particularly on the Prairie provinces where the incidence of intermarriage with Non-Aboriginals is relatively recent and comparatively low.    

However, it is important to appreciate that this ballooning of the Status Indian population and the corresponding decline of the Non-Status population is not a permanent condition but a passing event. Most persons who are eligible for reinstatement under Bill C-3 1 have by now acquired Indian Status. As Chart 1 demonstrates, the majority of C-31 Indians were reinstated in the period immediately following the introduction of Bill C-3 1, and the number of reinstatements has decreased significantly in the last five years. [l2] As a result, growth rates of the off-reserve Status Indian population is once again beginning to approach those of the on reserve population. [l3]     

By 1991, the reinstatement process had by and large done its best in terms of reducing Non-Status Indian populations. It is at that point that we should expect the Non-Status populations to have been diminished the most significantly by the rapid exodus of members that could not be made up through natural increase. However, if we examine the Census for that year, we find that the Bill C-31 reinstatement process, even at its height, had not managed to extinguish the Non-Status Indian population. Some 60% of Ontarioís Aboriginal population, for instance, continued to be made up of persons of Indian ancestry off-reserve who did not have Status. A similar situation prevailed throughout Eastern Canada and in British Columbia, where over 40% of the Aboriginal population continued to be made up of Non-Status Indians. Only in the Prairie provinces, did the proportion of Indian people without Status fall below 25%.     

The principal reason a Non-Status Indian population continues to exist is that the new eligibility rules operate, as did the old ones, in such a way as to exclude persons of Indian descent from being recognized as Indians for purposes of the Indian Act. This Non-Status Indian population, though of Aboriginal ancestry, is in danger of falling through the cracks, and as belonging to no Aboriginal people or nation. There is no question that these persons are for the most part of mixed Indian/European descent, and, for constitutional purposes, the possibility always exists that they could be considered Metis. However, in the event that they are not, they will have even more of a problem being recognized as belonging to an Indian people, since, by definition, they are not affiliated with any particular Indian Nation or Band. This Non-Status population is in real danger of being denied its "aboriginality" and being merely subsumed into mainstream society. Is this not precisely the goal of the Indian Act regime and integrationist policy?     

If it is, then Aboriginal people are in for a rude awakening in the not too distant future, for the Non-Status Indian population disclosed by the 1991 Census will do nothing but grow once the reinstatement process has run its course and the full impact of the new Status rules make themselves felt. It does not take a genius to figure this out. We merely have to ask what would happen if all Status Indians alive today married a Non-Indian or someone without Status, and their children did the same: within two generations, there would be no Status Indians left in Canada. All persons of Indian descent would by then have fallen through the cracks and none would any longer belong to any Aboriginal group or First Nation. While this is unlikely to occur as quickly as in our hypothetical example, there is no question that, as more and more Status Indians form unions with persons other than Status Indians, the fewer Status Indians there will be in the succeeding generation, and the larger the Non-Status Indian population will become. The rate at which this will occur depends on the incidence of inter-marriage with Non-Indians of each successive generation, a calculation which I leave to demographic experts. The fact that the new rules now apply to descendants of males as well as females only serves to accelerate the process.     

The time has come to consider alternative ways of dealing with the issue of Status, what it means and who should obtain it. While this is not the place to devise alternative solutions to Bill C-31 rules, there are few principles that any new solution should, in our opinion, respect: These are:     

 1. The federal government has no business telling Indian people  who is and who is not an Indian.     

 2. Status Indian communities should not fall into the trap of  trying to ensure the purity of their race: this is not only  morally reprehensible, it would ensure the extinction of their  community in the long run.     

 3. Eligibility for Indian Status should be based primarily on  having Aboriginal ancestry and self-identification with an  Aboriginal people.     

 4. Persons who meet these requirements should be entitled to  apply for membership in the Band of their ancestors, and  membership should be granted automatically by the Band upon  verification of ancestry.     

 5. All persons who are accepted as members of the Indian  Nation/Band should be accepted as Indians by the federal  government and recognized as Indians with legal rights  regardless of place of residence.