Joint Chiefs Assembly Passes Historic Resolution - Abolish Canada's Indian Act

A historic resolution was passed at the joint chiefs assembly in Dakota tipi this week -- a move to abolish the Indian Act of Canada. Grand Chief Derek Nepinak notes there was no shortage of discussion about it.

"We had a very lengthy discussion, I think it took about three hours today, to reflect  upon the discussion introduced by the Prime Minister Trudeau. to talk about Nation to Nation. And we believe that in order to engage on a nation to nation basis, we have to move past the Indian Act in order to properly construct legitimate forms of governance within our indigenous  nations to engage on a nation to nation basis. And in order to construct those mechanisms we have to get out of the Indian Act system."

Nepinak says there's no shortage of fear related to the thoughts of the abolition

"A lot of the fear raised here is that, 'Well, if we don't have the Indian Act, what do we have in terms of services and access for education, and so forth.' And I believe that there's a whole host  of international standards that are out there. You know, even within Canadian law there are standards under the human rights commissions that assure basic minimums are preserved for Canadians. And those basic minimums actually exceed what we're receiving right now under the Indian Act system. So, there's really nothing to lose, I think, in moving forward with this. I'm 100% behind the mandate I've received on that."

He explains where they go from here.

"Well, the next step, I've asked my staff to start putting together a plan for a Manitoba-wide -- and maybe even regionally-wide -- meeting  to look in other jurisdictions and invite people to come together to talk about the abolishment of the Indian Act; to talk about its history; to really get a true and informed picture of the history of the amendments, and how the Indian Act has been used to deny the true governance of our clan mothers, and to marginalize women within our communities to bring violence to our women by robbing them of identity as indigenous people. And to really look  at that history and call it for what it is. We're going to be doing that probably in mid May."

Dakota Tipi First Nation Chief David Pashé, host of the Assembly this week, shares his perspective.

"I think that is a very good step. I know that being a native person, we are regulated by the Indian Act right form the day we are born til the day we die. But at the same time, ins saying that, when we abolish the Indian Act, that just might give the government fuel for fire. They just might say, 'If you want to abolish the Indian Act, there'll be no Indian then. So, that means we don't have to fund you any more.' So, we have to be careful. I was wanting to make sure there was some kind of emergency plan in place in case the government comes back with that. To abolish the Indian Acts we have a long way to go for our regional chief and grand chief from Manitoba. They have a long road to fight this. Because I know, to abolish the Indian Act  is going to be a constitutional change. So, I think it has to take the government of Canada to abolish the Indian Act. We still have a long ways to go.  I think we're the only province that has given our leaders the go-ahead to start the process.

Dakota Plains councillor and proxy for Chief Orville Smoke Craig Blacksmith says it's like being under perpetual trust conditions.

"It's a resolution to start the process to abolish the Indian Act and to repeal Section 91(24) of the constitution. The Indian Act is a trust fund set up for use and benefit of this 'Indian.' The government doesn't want to define what this 'Indian' is. But, as a trust, if I was unfortunate and I my parents were involved in a traffic accident, I would be placed in under trust conditions. Somebody would minister on my behalf until I reached age of 18. Then the trust condition would be lifted, and I would be on my own. Well, I'm 54 years old. And I'm still under trust conditions of the government. What the government has done is, instead of treating us like people, when we reach the age of 18, instead of lifting trust conditions and giving us our share of our trust, they've managed that trust on our behalf.  And in doing so they've used the trust money for their own use and benefit, which is basically all the infrastructure that you see all around the universal health care,universal social systems. And in other ways they've also propped themselves up with their million dollar homes. In doing so with the  trust conditions, rather than giving us the trust money, looking after our trust, they made us out to look like we're financially incompetent; we're mentally incompetent; we're criminals; the prisons are full of our people. 110,000 of our kids are in provincial child care. It's all designed to make us look like we don't know how to look after ourselves. And that's all that abolishing the Indian Act is. It's nothing against you yourself personally, or the Canadian people, but our issue is with the government. And we don't need the government managing our trust any more. That's the bottom line."