Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I'm unclear about what they want to consult about. Perhaps it's membership. I don't know. I know that they don't have the right to consult about discrimination. No one has the right to say it's okay to discriminate. They did it for Bill C-31. They did it for Bill C-3, and it lo

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  We have a band in B.C. that would admit anybody. They saw themselves as a sunset band and they took anybody. They have advertised, saying that if you want a band, you can transfer to them; they will take you. There are bands, according to Stewart Clatworthy, that by 2030 will n

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I'm very, very clear on this piece of legislation. It needs to be fixed. You need to take out all the discrimination. It's as simple as that. It's not rocket science here at all. To follow up on what Joe said, I was part of a constitutional consultation committee in 1989-90. We

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I'll start. Take the discrimination out. From the time the legislation was put in place, whatever version it was, up until 1985, there was discrimination against women and their descendants. That's all I am asking: take away the discrimination and put the people where they shoul

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  No, Joe and I are looking at each other; both of our microphones are on.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Okay. I don't think the government knows what nation to nation is. I don't think they know how to consult, and I definitely am convinced that, whatever they're doing, it's not nation to nation. If they were going to consult nation to nation, they wouldn't be consulting individu

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  You did make non-indigenous people Indians. In 1985, when we lobbied to have every non-indigenous woman who had married in and received Indian status to have that status removed, the parliamentarians said, “No, we couldn't do that.” They basically said that they lowered themselve

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I don't have a lot more to add. It was really clear that section 10, part of the Indian Act, was put into place to help alleviate these kinds of difficulties. I know across the country of at least 37 bands that have their own membership codes, and those membership codes continue

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  We're only talking about the relationships between the government and mainly Indian women and their descendants.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you. My name is Sharon McIvor. I'm appearing at this committee for the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs, which is a B.C. group of chiefs that has been in existence since the mid-1970s, and whose major focus is aboriginal title right and treaty rights. Today I'm just speaking s