The national chief of the Assembly of First Nations says the only leaders to discuss abolishing the Indian Act during a landmark meeting last week were Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew and Prime Minister Mark Carney.
Carney said after the meeting that the idea was raised by chiefs in the room.
Kinew, who is Anishinaabe, called for the act to be abolished during the historic gathering of federal, provincial and First Nations leaders in Ottawa.
The Indian Act, which dates from 1876, gives Ottawa sweeping powers over First Nations communities and people, including the authority to decide who qualifies for status and what reserves can and can’t do.
Both Kinew and Carney said the idea to change or abolish the Indian Act was raised and supported by some chiefs in the room. AFN National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak said on Tuesday that’s not true.
Woodhouse Nepinak said the chiefs were focused more on the major projects legislation they say threatens their rights, and those conversations “went to the wayside” when Kinew and Carney made their remarks.
The prime minister said after the meeting he was “very open to” the idea but later said the Indian Act could be reformed rather than abolished.
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“Not everybody, but other participants raised the desirability. So it’s already starting from the right place in that it’s not the federal government deciding something should be done. It’s responding to a request,” Carney said at the time.
In an emailed statement issued Friday, a spokesperson for Indigenous Services Minister Mandy Gull-Masty’s office said Kinew was not the only one to raise the possibility of reforming or removing the Indian Act at the meeting.
“As the meeting was held behind closed doors, it would be inappropriate to provide more specificity on the details of the conversation,” Livi McElrea said.
While First Nations chiefs generally agree the law is outdated and restrictive, there is little consensus on whether it should be repealed and what might take its place.
First Nations leaders broadly support changing the rules on how the Indian Act determines who qualifies for status. The federal government has not committed to changing those rules.
Previous prime ministers have tried and failed to reform or eliminate the Indian Act. In 1969, years before he became prime minister, Jean Chrétien introduced what was known as the “White Paper” when he was minister of Indian Affairs in the government of Pierre Trudeau.
The document called for the abolition of the Indian Act, an end to Indian status, the absorption of First Nations people as ordinary Canadian citizens, the termination of treaties and the privatization of reserve lands.
The proposal received widespread pushback from First Nations leaders led in part by Harold Cardinal and the Indian Association of Alberta. They called Chrétien’s plan assimilationist and warned it would lead to the erasure of their cultures.
In the emailed statement from Gull-Masty’s office, McElrea said Carney has acknowledged the Indian Act is racist and it’s necessary to have a broader conversation with First Nations about its future.
There are policies in place if a First Nation decides to opt out of the Indian Act and move toward self-government.
Gull-Masty’s community, the Cree First Nation of Waswanipi, is one of those self-governing communities under the 1975 James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement — the first modern land claim in Canada and one in which Chrétien played a leading role.
Talk of reforming or abolishing the Indian Act comes as Carney works to speed up development of major projects alongside the provinces and Indigenous Peoples.
His government’s Building Canada Act initially gave Ottawa the power to sidestep the Indian Act. That provision was removed in response to calls from the Conservatives and the Bloc Québécois.
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