As a member of the Indian Act Sex Discrimination Working Group, the Canadian Feminist Alliance for International Action has collaboratively sent a letter to the Minister of Finance, Chrystia Freeland, urgently requesting that Budget 2022 include adequate funds to ensure that by 2025 all First Nations women and their descendants who became eligible for status as of August 15, 2019 are fully registered under the Indian Act.
On June 1, 2017, the Senate of Canada unanimously passed an amendment to Bill S-3. This amendment would, for the first time, entitle Indian women and their descendants to full 6(1)(a) Indian status on the same footing as Indian men and their descendants. The Government of Canada has estimated that between 270,000 and 450,000 First Nations women and their descendants are newly eligible for status under Bill S-3.
However, until these women and their descendants who are newly entitled are actually registered, the change to the law has no meaning. It is therefore, crucially important that the implementation of Bill S-3 be adequately supported by funds provided through the federal Budget.
Read the full letter here.
Signatories:
Sharon McIvor
Jeannette Corbiere Lavell, C.M.
Cora McGuire-Cyrette, Executive Director, Ontario Native Women’s Association
Marjolaine Étienne, President, Quebec Native Women’s Association/Femmes
Autochtonnes du Québec
Chief Judy Wilson, Secretary-Treasurer, Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs
Dr. Lynn Gehl
Dr. Pamela Palmater, Chair in Indigenous Governance, Ryerson University
Dr. Gwen Brodsky
Mary Eberts, O.C.
Shelagh Day, C.M., Chair, Human Rights Committee, Canadian Feminist Alliance
for International Action