Indian Act is the main Canadian law governing relations between the First Nations of Canada and the federal government. First Nations are various peoples descended from Canada’s original inhabitants. They were called Indians when the act was passed in 1876. Today, many people find the term Indian to be offensive when applied to First Nations. The First Nations are one of three Indigenous (native) groups in Canada, along with the Inuit and the Métis. The Inuit are a people who live mostly in and near the Canadian Arctic. The Métis are a people of European and First Nation ancestry whose society developed in the Canadian Prairies region from the late 1700’s. The Indian Act applies only to First Nation people who are registered with the federal government.
The original Indian Act of 1876 consolidated earlier laws from Canada’s British colonial period into one federal act. It controlled the administration of First Nation reserve lands, as well as First Nations’ economic and political activity. It also institutionalized control by the executive branch of the federal government over most aspects of life on reserves. Additionally, the Indian Act regulated the Canadian citizenship of individuals with the legal status of “registered Indian,” often called status Indians. Such individuals were registered on a list maintained by the federal government. Not all First Nation people are registered.
Many First Nation people probably viewed registration as a recognition of their treaty rights—that is, rights granted by treaties signed with Canada’s government. However, from the government’s viewpoint, registration did not necessarily guarantee such rights. Registration did entitle First Nations to federal funding for certain benefits, such as education and health care. However, status Indians were denied civil rights held by other Canadian citizens, including the right to vote and, from 1927, the right to raise funds to organize politically and represent their legal and political interests. In 1951, the government removed the prohibition against political organization, along with other changes. In 1960, it granted status Indians the right to vote in federal elections.
The Indian Act of 1876 provided for a process called enfranchisement. By this process, individuals could voluntarily give up their registered Indian status and associated benefits in exchange for full Canadian citizenship rights. They also could be automatically or involuntarily enfranchised for certain reasons. The goal of enfranchisement was to assimilate (absorb or incorporate) Canada’s original inhabitants into the society created by colonial settlers. Enfranchisement meant giving up membership in one’s First Nation community, the right to live on reserve lands, and what many understood to be legal recognition of their treaty rights. Enfranchisement was introduced into Canada in 1857, during colonial times, and incorporated into the Indian Act. A 1985 amendment removed enfranchisement provisions from the Indian Act.
Since 1876, lawmakers have amended the Indian Act many times. In the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, amendments increasingly pressured First Nations to assimilate into mainstream Canadian society and give up their separate legal status and cultural identities. For example, an 1894 amendment required First Nation children to attend government-sponsored boarding schools called residential schools. Such institutions sought to break children’s ties to their Indigenous cultures. Many children suffered neglect and abuse in residential schools.
Political and legal activism by First Nations resulted in major reforms to the Indian Act beginning in the mid-1900’s. Such reforms lessened pressure on First Nations to assimilate. For example, the 1985 amendment allowed registered Indian women to marry nonregistered Indian men without losing their own registered status. It also allowed for women who had lost registered Indian status through marriage, and their children, to regain that status. However, the amendment did not entitle all descendants of such women to registered status.
First Nations achieved a legal milestone in the Constitution Act of 1982, which recognized the “existing aboriginal and treaty rights of the aboriginal peoples of Canada.” The significance of this phrase might not have been clear at the time. But later rulings by the Supreme Court of Canada in 1990 and 2014 recognized First Nation rights regarding self-government and authority over traditional Indigenous lands, respectively.
Today, the Indian Act is an unpopular reminder of a time when assimilation, rather than reconciliation and coexistence of Indigenous and non-Indigenous people, was a goal of federal policy. However, changes to Canada’s constitution and laws have given First Nations greater opportunity to leave or transform the jurisdiction (area of authority) of the Indian Act.
