Indigenous Membership - Who is eligible

For some Federal politicians or senior bureaucrats, it must feel as if they cannot do anything right. Take for example the government' Bill S-3 which received royal assent nine or so months ago. S-3 is a bill designed to correct an error. In determining who had First Nation status, it was the rule that any Indigenous woman who had married a non-indigenous man lost her status for all time as a member of a First Nation community. Indigenous men who married a non- indigenous woman had never lost their status. S-3 got rid of that discrimination. We should all cheer that the government has deleted this sex-based discrimination from its legislation. Really - who would complain?

It turns out that some First Nation communities have some concern about the number of individuals who have applied for status but who have never had any contact or involvement with what is now their home community. These concerns raise some valid issues that someone needs to resolve. I am just glad it is not me. Questions raised include:

- If the individual has never had any contact with the community or does not speak the language or has no cultural connection to the community- are they really part of the community?

- If the individual has never had any connection to a community but their grandmother or great-grandmother did - is that community obligated to provide supports and services to the individual? Does that individual get to vote on band issues?

- What percentage of Indigenous blood/DNA should a person have before they are eligible to be given status?

As almost all First Nations communities have limited resources, clearly these issues need to be resolved. And they are not new issues. Anytime a community has limited resources, the membership debate is always at least in part, about who gets access to the resources. Some First Nation communities are right in wondering how many of the 17,000 people who have applied for Indigenous status have done so, not because they want to right a wrong, but rather because they see some benefit in gaining access to a status card.

Politicians and senior bureaucrats need to accept that changing a law, while it may on the surface correct a wrong - may not be the only or the best solution. Clearly, it was sex-based discriminatory to disenfranchise some Indigenous women from their rights and status as members of a First Nation community. That wrong is not corrected because her great-grandchildren now get to call themselves Indigenous. I am not sure what the solution is - perhaps we cannot always correct the wrongs of the past. Perhaps there is no fixing the damage that was done. Perhaps the best that we can do is to ensure that the communities that are expected to welcome these new members into their family are strengthened and given time to decide for themselves what is best.

Empowering individuals or communities is not about letting people do what we allow them to do - empowerment is acknowledging that communities have the right to do what they decide to do.