Thank you.
Good afternoon. Thank you so much for inviting LEAF to speak with you today. We're very grateful to the Algonquin nation for allowing us to meet on their territory.
My name is Kim Stanton. I'm the legal director at LEAF, the Women's Legal Education and Action Fund. With me is Krista Nerland, who is with Olthuis Kleer Townshend. Krista is LEAF's co-counsel in its intervention in the Gehl and Attorney General case. This is a case that's making its way to the Ontario Court of Appeal for a hearing in a couple of weeks. It's about the way the Indian Act treats unstated and unknown paternity. We say that the policy is a form of sex discrimination against women. We note with concern that the Department of Justice continues to fight Dr. Gehl, an indigenous woman who lives with a disability, in her efforts to gain status. This is something that we really do need to rectify, and this bill doesn't do it.
LEAF is a national organization. We're a non-profit. We were founded in 1985 to promote substantive equality for women and girls through litigation, law reform, and public education. We've long been concerned about the persistence of sex discrimination in the Indian Act, and we're very disheartened that this is yet another legislative attempt to address the discrimination that falls short of providing indigenous women with justice.
Krista will provide you with a summary of our concerns about this bill.