OTTAWA - The federal government has introduced legislation to extend formal Indian status to the grandchildren of aboriginal women who married non-natives - a change that could add as many as 45,000 people to the Indian registry.
The bill, introduced in the Commons on Thursday by Indian Affairs Minister Chuck Strahl, is in response to a 2009 B.C. court judgment which ruled that a law denying Indian status to the grandchildren was discriminatory.
"This legislation provides an excellent opportunity to address long-standing gender discrimination related to Indian registration," Strahl said.
The B.C. Court of Appeal gave Ottawa a deadline of April 6, 2010, to change the law. The government has applied for an extension to push that deadline to the end of the current parliamentary session. Strahl said he hopes Parliament will speed passage.
NDP Critic Jean Crowder said her party will support the bill, although she said it doesn't address broader native questions.
"It's a very narrow response to the B.C. court decision; they did what they minimally had to do," she said.
Strahl said he plans to consult aboriginal groups on further needed reforms.
"We've been in discussions with national aboriginal organizations to talk about a exploratory process to deal with issues outside the scope of this bill, to deal with things like membership on reserves, voting privileges, Indian citizenship, a series of other issues that came up during our consultation period."
The Indian Act, which governs who has status as an Indian, once stripped that status from women who married non-natives. Men kept the status, no matter whom they married.
A 1985 change got rid of that inequity, but left another. While a woman who regained status could pass it to her children, they couldn't transmit it to their children if they married non-natives.
Under the proposed law, if the grandchildren marry Indians, their offspring, too, will have status. If they marry non-natives, however, their children won't qualify.
Indian Affairs estimates that as many as 45,000 people could qualify for status.
"This is a application-based system," Strahl said. "Although we've had demographers give some early estimates to how many people might be added, what's unclear is how many will apply."
However, the department also has only the haziest idea of what it might cost.
The department expects that most of the "new" Indians live off-reserve and are likely to stay there. An internal departmental group is going to look at the financial implications.
Crowder said the lack of money is a worry: "We're very concerned about whether they are going to assign resources to bands with reinstated members."
Natives on reserves qualify for a number of benefits not available to those living elsewhere.
While the newcomers will get formal Indian status, it's not clear that they will automatically get membership in a native band, as well.
For most bands, Indian Affairs maintains membership lists and the newcomers to those bands will be given membership. About one-third of bands maintain their own membership lists and, in those cases, the newcomers would have to apply for inclusion.
A rejection wouldn't affect their Indian status, but would bar them from living on the reserve and taking advantage of band benefits.