Unity for Our Grandchildren Conference

Speaking notes of

Harry W. Daniels' presentation to

The Native Women's Association of Canada

March 23, 1998

Bill C-31 promised to reinstate the thousand of Indians, in particular Indian women, who had lost their status under the old Act and who had been kicked-off reserve as a consequence. It was widely believed that it would make the very concept "non-status Indian" a thing of the past: All Indian people from now on would be recognized as Indians for the purposes of the Indian Act. Naturally, Indian people off-reserve expected that in regaining their Indian status they would start being treated as Status Indians. That is, their rights would be recognized and they would be given access to the benefits which the Indian Act regime had traditionally reserved to Status Indians.

After more than ten years of experience with Bill C-31, it has become abundantly clear that the Bill has not lived up to expectations. In fact, it has put into place a regime that is more insidious than the old Indian Act. The new regime that perpetuates the integrationist and assimilationist policies that the Indian Act has always had.

Faced with difficult and confusing situations the elders tell us that if you can put a name on something, you can deal with it. There has never been a name for Bill C-31 and it strikes me that it needs one. For us, the Bill is the "Abocide Bill", not quite the same as genocide, but close. Like genocide, it refers to elimination. In this case, the elimination of the so-called Status of Indian people. If this seems somewhat alarmist, let's look closely at this legislation.

The new status rules are key to understanding the regime that this Abocide Bill imposes on Indian people. As many of you will recall, the major reasons that this Bill was enacted in the first place was because the old rules for determining who was and who was not a Status Indian discriminated against women and as a consequence, would not have met the test of Section 15 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The old Indian Act had used a patrilenial rule to determine eligibility for Indian status. In other words, if your father was a Status Indian, you were a Status Indian. If your father was white or non-status, you were white or non-status. The mother alone could not confer status on her offspring.In fact, a Status Indian woman who married non-status lost her status and was kicked off the reserve.

A Status Indian man, on the other hand, who married non-status, not only retained his status, but confered it on his non-Indian wife as well. These rules had to go.

The federal government could theoretically have given women the same powers that Indian men enjoyed under the old Act. All Status Indians, whether male or female, would thereby have acquired the ability to pass on status to their children, irrespective of the ethnic background of their partners. This would have been a reasonable solution and in keeping with our traditions. However, this is not what Bill C-31 does. Rather, the Bill places men in a position akin to that of women under the old Act. Now men as well as women can lose their ability to confer status on their children. Witness the former National Chief, Ovide Mercredi's children.

The new rule is that after two consecutive generations of inter-marriage with persons without Indian status, the third generation is no longer eligible for Indian status. We have to be clear about what this means for the future of Indian people in this country.

This Abocide Bill has the potential over the short span of two generations to do what 500 years of colonization failed to do. That is, the elimination of all status Indians. But I'll tell you what. I bet it won't spell the end of the Department of Indian Affairs.

We still haven't really felt the effects of the new rules and this for two reasons. First, attention has focussed in the last ten years on the tremendous increase in the Status Indian population,
particularly off-reserve, that reinstatement has engendered. But reinstatement has about run its course and will soon no longer be a major source of growth for the Status Indian population. I will be tabling a paper later today on this point.

Second, the current generation of Status Indians and their children have essentially been exempted from having to meet the test that the new rules impose. It is the grandsons and grand-daughters
of the current generation of Status Indians who will be the first victims of Abocide. To be eligible for Indian status, they will either have to have:

- both parents Status Indians;

or,

- one Status Indian parent both of whose parents were Status Indians.

Based on the out-marriage rate, many will not be able to pass this test of status lineage. In time, we can expect to see the number of non-Status Indians in Canada once again begin to explode.

We must take action today to avoid these consequences tomorrow. We must tell the federal government collectively that it has no business telling Indian people who is and who is not an
Indian. It did so under the old Act with disastrous consequences, and it is doing it again.

We have to adopt alternative ways of determining Indian status based on ancestry, self-identification and community acceptance. Whoever the community accepts as Indian, the federal government should as well.

Moreover, this Bill has done very little to promote equality between Indians on an off-reserve. Under the old Act, non-Status Indians had no rights and could not receive benefits under the Indian Act, while Status Indians had rights and were entitled to benefits. The new regime has not translated into recognized rights and extended benefits to the new Status Indians off-reserve, in particular C-31 Indians.

How has Status changed the real status of the former non-status population now classed as C-31? Bill C-31 actually attacks the Aboriginal and treaty rights of these people by enabling bands to exclude them from band membership lists. More than 40% of bands in Canada have adopted their own membership codes. Many of these codes exclude at least the children of people who had their status restored by Bill C-31.

Aboriginal and treaty rights are in the nature of collective rights. How can C-31 Indians ever access and exercise these rights if they are excluded from membership in the first nation? In divorcing status from band membership, Bill C-31 introduced a dangerous innovation that jeopardizes the rights of thousand of Status Indians off-reserve.

In short, this Abocide Bill is in full keeping with the integrationist policies behind the Indian Act since day one. Things have changed very little under the new Act. Sure, it is unlikely today that anyone will be kicked off a reserve, and it is now impossible for anyone to lose his or her status. However, despite so many reinstatements, off-reserve Indians, even those with status, are not treated in the same way as Indians on reserve.

And down the road, in a few years, the descendants of today's Status Indians will themselves be denied the opportunity to be recognized as Indians. The goals of integrating the Indian peoples into the Canadian mainstream society will at that point come close to being fully realized.

We must act now to prevent this from happening. We must act now to ensure that all Indians have equal rights and equal access to benefits. Regardless whether they live on or off reserve. We must act now to reverse the integrationist policies of the Indian Act - before it is too late.The time has come to consider alternative ways of delaying with the issue of Status, what it means and who should obtain it.

There are a few principles that any new solution should respect:

1. The federal government has no right to tell Indian people who is and who is not an Indian.

2. Indians 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 extinguishment 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 a band should be accepted as Indians by the federal government and recognized as Indians with equal rights regardless of their place of residence.

Bill C-31 has served not to clarify but to confuse and obfuscate the issue of which Indians have rights and which do not. Under the old Act, the rule of thumb was that Metis and Non-Status Indians had no rights and were not entitled to benefits under the Indian Act, while Status Indians had rights and could receive benefits. Under Bill C-31, we still have Metis and Non-Status Indians, and it is still the case that they are not recognized as having any Aboriginal and Treaty rights, nor can they access benefits under the Indian Act.

I am prepared to work with the National Chief to change this.