Madam Speaker, I want to give the member an example from Vancouver Island that is even more egregious. We have 13 nations that make up the Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council, along with Ditidaht and the Hupacasath. Their cousins, Wakashan speakers, are Makah in Washington State, and when a woman married someone who was a non-status Indian in Canada, but was a Wakashan speaker in the United States, their cousins, they lost their status. The same is true in my riding of the Coast Salish people from the Songhees, Esquimalt, Scia’new, and the South nations. They have cousins living on the other side of the border. They are not literally cousins, but language families. If a woman married into those nations, she lost her status in Canada, whereas a man did not. It does not even have to be a non-native. It was a non-status person.
We have people who are very concerned, but I have to differ with the other member. All the people I have talked to in these nations have said we should change the law and they will make those decisions themselves.