Native women pan Bill C-31

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Ottawa missed the boat when it attempted to eliminate discrimination against Aboriginal women with Bill C-31, a 1985 change to the Indian Act. That's the consensus reached during a three-day conference dedicated to examining the legacy of Bill C-31.

As far as the conference's delegates are concerned, the question isn't whether or not gigantic and harmful mistakes were made when Bill C-31 became law, it's whether the federal government intended to make them.

Several hundred people arrived at Edmonton's Ramada Inn for the May 14 to 16 gathering hosted by the Native Women's Association of Canada.

Most speakers left no doubt they believe the government has done its best to limit the number of people who are eligible for Indian status as a way of assimilating and disenfranchising the next generation of Native people. The women also stated in very strong terms that they believe the First Nations leadership has, for its own reasons, been only too anxious to help the government.

Almost every woman who attended the conference had a horror story to tell about her dealings with the Indian registrar and/or her band council. Two pioneers in the women's rights movement told their stories. Lawyers who have represented C-31 women in legal battles with Canada and First Nations offered their own interpretations of what the government agenda looks like. Two national Native leaders and one prominent activist from the past hammered Bill C-31 and the governments who have administered it.

In the same room where, in 1969, a very young Harold Cardinal gained national attention as he took aim at then Indian Affairs Minister Jean Chretien's White Paper, Cardinal was back to speak to the NWAC delegates on the morning of May 14. He recently completed his doctor of laws degree at the University of British Columbia and has returned to his home community in

Alberta.

"When the Mulroney government brought in Bill C-31 in 1985 it looked like it would be a watershed moment in Canadian thinking," Cardinal said. "It held the promise that a new way of dealing with our people would ensue."

But, Cardinal said, the government was not willing to follow through on the promise of C-31 and things started to go wrong. The bill has turned off-reserve residents and on-reserve residents into adversaries; it has failed to protect the rights of Native women and their children, he said.

Cardinal called on all Aboriginal people to put aside their differences and join forces to right the wrongs of the past.

"We must be able to set aside the principles of division, the principles of meanness, the principles of greed," he said. "We must replace them with our traditional values of generosity, inclusion, sharing and love. All of us who are First Nations people must be, should be, ought to be able to work together."