User:Makeitmakesense/Indian Act

In addition, the 1876 Indian Act maintained that Indigenous women with status who married status Indigenous men would, in the event of divorce, be unable to regain their status to the band they were originally registered in. This occurred as a result of the Act’s enforcement of the patrilineal descent principle required to determine an individual’s eligibility for Indian status. As individuals, Indigenous women were not eligible for status or able to transfer status to their children in their own right. Rather, Indian status could only be reacquired or transferred legally by proof of an Indigenous father or through marriage to a husband with status.

Under Bill C-31, this became known as the second generation cut-off.

Lavell, whose activism helped create the Ontario Native Women’s Association also held the position of vice president of the Native Women’s Association of Canada. Lavell and other Indigenous women were key actors in generating public awareness of gender discrimination in Canadian law and paving the way for later amendments to the Indian Act that allowed some women and their children to regain and/or attain status under Bill-C31.

The 1985 amendments led to the repatriation of status for many Indigenous women and their children but did not guarantee acceptance into an Indian band. A decade later, nearly 100,000 people had their status reinstated while bands had newly gained control of membership responsibilities which were previously. Consequently, the scarce reality of low access to essential services and resources amongst Indigenous communities became a primary factor driving the membership process and its outcomes.