Liberals quiet on whether government will support Senate changes to First Nations bill that would end second-generation cut-off

2026/02/17 Leave a comment

Interesting parallel with C-3 and citizenship by descent. But Indian status is more material in terms of benefits and Canadian citizenship. Hard to see what would be a meaningful connection test if no parent or grandparent indigenous:

The House of Commons has started its study of government legislation aimed at ending gender inequities in the Indian Act but it’s unclear if the Liberals will support Senate amendments eliminating the so-called second-generation cut-off.

The rule denies Indian status to people who had a non-First Nation parent and grandparent, and has been criticized as a colonial policy that allows Ottawa to determine who qualifies as Indigenous and designed to limit the government’s obligations to status peoples.

Bill S-2 was introduced in the House in December after passing in the Senate with amendments that would end the cut-off policy.

The amendments passed over objections from senators representing the government, who called for more consultations with rights-holders.

But critics accused the government of using the consultations as a delay tactic, with other changes in S-2 facing a court-imposed deadline of this spring.

During third reading debate in the Upper Chamber, Sen. PJ Prosper said waiting for separate legislation was risky in a minority Parliament, with the threat of an unexpected election call always looming.

“What happens to the children affected by the cut-off if the government fails before consultations are concluded? What happens to the children if the government cannot pass stand-alone legislation in time?” he asked.

“In that way, these amendments, with the one-year coming-into-force delay, act as a fail-safe in these uncertain and unpredictable times.”

S-2 bill is still awaiting second reading in the House, but the chamber’s Indigenous and northern affairs committee began their study this week on issues related to the Indian Act registration.

Lori Doran, director general of individual affairs at Indigenous Services, told the committee on Tuesday the government is currently collecting submissions on the second-generation cut-off, which will then be reviewed by a panel of First Nations experts to assess their “legal viability and other impacts.”

That would then be packaged into a guide for consultations at a series of First Nations-led events that would start in the spring, she said.

Doran said some of the options floated to replace the second-generation cut-off include a one-parent rule, First Nations jurisdiction to decide on status or the use of DNA testing.

Several First Nations groups have publicly called on the government to support the Senate changes, including the Assembly of First Nations, which advocates on behalf of over 630 communities.

At a special assembly in Ottawa in December, AFN chiefs voted to support Senate changes to Bill S-2 to end the cut-off policy, with some chiefs warning that many First Nations would lose all status members in coming decades without changes to registration requirements. If a First Nation loses all its status members, their reserve territory would become Crown land.

Indigenous Services Minister Mandy Gull-Masty responded that she needed more time to consult before making a decision.

Gull-Masty’s office said the minister was unavailable on Friday.

Appearing on Thursday before the House Indigenous committee, AFN National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak called the second-generation cut-off a “blood-quantum rule rooted in colonial thinking” that was designed to “reduce Canada’s obligations by steadily decreasing the number of people entitled to Indian status.”

“The rule treats First Nations identity as something that can be diluted and eventually erased. It does not reflect First Nations understandings of belongings and places the power to decide who is Indian enough with the federal government.”…

Source: Liberals quiet on whether government will support Senate changes to First Nations bill that would end second-generation cut-off

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Bellegarde: Let’s just admit it: Canada has a racism problem

2020/06/16 Leave a comment

Good commentary:

As a Cree man, the outrage that has followed the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis resonates with my experience and my people’s demands for justice. Canadians cannot ignore the dangerous parallels that exist in how Canadian police officers interact with people of different ethnicities and how a distressingly high percentage of First Nations men and women end up either injured or dead at the hands of the people we expect to help and protect us.

Last week, a young mother, Chantel Moore, was killed by a local Edmunston, N.B. policeman who was supposed to be making a wellness check on her. She was reported to be holding a knife and in some emotional distress, but how a knock on the door turned into a confrontation in which the officer felt the need to discharge his weapon five times is hard to imagine. A day later came news that Chief Allan Adam was badly beaten and his wife roughed up during a routine traffic stop by RCMP officers in Fort McMurray in March. The pictures of Chief Adam’s battered face were disturbing, but it is the officers’ voices captured on tape and the speed with which the police escalated the confrontation that should alarm everyone. And Friday night, another First Nations man was shot dead by the Mounties, this time near Miramichi, N.B. The circumstances are always unique, but the resulting escalation and violent confrontation is not.

Until Friday, when Commissioner Brenda Lucki finally admitted her police force has a problem, the RCMP had insisted that its officers respond to situations in the same ways, regardless of whether the civilian on the other side is white, Black or First Nation. But the statistics simply don’t support this claim. Worse, the sentiment among police and First Nations youth is now rife with contempt and distrust.

Let’s spare ourselves another futile debate over whether systemic racism exists in Canada. There have been countless reports over the past 50 years, and the conclusion is always the same: First Nations face systemic racism in every aspect of life and from every institution of Canadian society. This is a fact. It should be clear to everyone by now that Canada’s unwillingness to address systemic racism is killing people. It’s killing Black people and it’s killing First Nations, Inuit and Métis people. We have to move past this unnecessary debate about whether or not systemic racism exists and we have to do it now.

While Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has made considerable efforts toward reconciliation and creating economic opportunities for First Nations, his government remains notably silent on dealing with systemic racism within the justice and corrections systems. Restorative justice delayed is restorative justice denied. It is clear this is not a problem that will heal itself.

Canadians spend so much money on policing despite knowing that it can’t solve the pressing social problems facing marginalized communities. In recent days, there have been mounting calls all over the world to “defund the police.” My question is this: When our young First Nations, in distress, call for help, are the police the right people to answer?

As a country, our focus must be on peace and justice more than law and order. Some would try to argue that the difference between those two philosophies is minimal, but I believe it is the difference between life and death. Instead of putting more guns and armoured cars in the hands of police forces, let’s try funding better schools and after-school sports programs that are proven to successfully reduce drug use and gang violence. Instead of more police officers, let’s focus on ones that are better trained, with higher compensation available to retain those with the best records for de-escalating conflict and not harming those they’re supposed to be helping.

The memory of Martin Luther King has been evoked many times over the past few weeks. One thing he said has always stood out to me: “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” It is hard to imagine more challenging times than these, yet it is precisely now that we need Mr. Trudeau and his team to finish the job that they started.

Source: Let’s just admit it: Canada has a racism problem Perry Bellegarde

Filed under Aboriginal, Multiculturalism, Racism Tagged with ,