Despite the decision in the Descheneaux case that came out of Montreal, despite Bill S-3, which this Parliament passed, Deborah is still on the outside looking in. Had she been born male, she would have had full Indian status and full band membership; she would belong to her community.
Her life story was that she was scooped in the early 1960s into the child welfare system, and through operation of discriminatory law—law that's been declared discriminatory, which Parliament was told to fix and has not—she still suffers from that structural inequality. That deprives her of her belonging, identity and community support.