On Tuesday’s live stream, Sheila Gunn Reid and Lise Merle discussed Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew’s call to abolish the Indian Act and Prime Minister Mark Carney’s shifting answer on whether Ottawa will do it.
Kinew raised the issue on Monday at a meeting in Ottawa of first ministers and First Nations leaders. He held up his own status card, which identifies him as “an Indian within the meaning of the Indian Act.”
“I’m not sure if that lines up with your vision of Canada, that we still have a race-based form of identification in this country, but this is a reality,” Kinew said. “I think it’s time to abolish the Indian Act, get rid of the Indian Act, move past the Indian Act.”
He said the change “needs to be done with First Nations people and First Nations governments,” and that his proposal got an “open-minded reception” from other leaders in the closed-door meeting.
The Indian Act, first passed in 1876, still governs who has Indian status, how reserve land is managed and how band governments operate. Reserve land is held by the Crown for the use of the band, so most First Nations people living on reserve cannot own their homes or land outright.
On Monday, Carney said he was “very open to” abolishing or modernizing the Act, CFJC reported. Speaking in French, he called it a racist law, according to The Globe and Mail.
On Tuesday, a reporter noted that critics say the government “consults to death” and asked Carney why he was comfortable saying he wanted to abolish the Act without consulting First Nations communities. “That is exactly what I did not say,” Carney replied.
He said the issues are “deep, complex, sensitive” and that any reform, including potential abolition, would need a “co-developed” process, which the federal government is open to. “That’s very different than saying, I, we are going to do X. We are not saying that at all,” he said.
Previous attempts to scrap the Act have failed. Pierre Trudeau’s government proposed abolishing it in its 1969 White Paper, then withdrew the plan after strong opposition from First Nations leaders.
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