AFN chief says Indian Act reform proposal was sidelined at First Nations-premiers meeting
Assembly of First Nations National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak said the discussion on reforming or abolishing the Indian Act was pushed aside during a recent meeting with premiers, while other legislative priorities were not addressed.
Assembly of First Nations National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak said that, aside from Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew and Prime Minister Mark Carney, no other participants raised the prospect of abolishing the Indian Act at the First Nations-first ministers’ meeting on Oct. 26.
"We absolutely need to try and fix our relationship in this country, but you know, throwing that in when chiefs were…preparing all these weeks and months to come there with solutions in order to have that sideswiped, all the other conversations kind of went to the wayside," she told reporters on Parliament Hill.
Kinew was the first to note that Canada should move beyond the colonial law, and Carney later said he shared the view that Canada should consider "reforming or even abolishing the Indian Act." The prime minister added that not everyone at the meeting supported the idea and that any changes would be made in consultation with First Nations.
Woodhouse Nepinak said she had hoped the meeting would focus more on major-project legislation and a potential Indigenous sovereign-wealth fund. She noted that chiefs wanted to discuss Bill C-39 and Bill C-5, and warned that those issues should not be eclipsed by a single proposal.
During testimony before a legislative committee on Bill C-39, Woodhouse Nepinak described the bill as a "mass dilution" of First Nations rights and said the Assembly of First Nations does not support it in its current form because it fails to meaningfully implement the Crown’s duty to consult, accommodate, or the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act.
She also criticized the passage of Bill C-5, the Building Canada Act, describing its rapid enactment as a source of controversy and distrust between First Nations and the federal government. Recent legal challenges by First Nations in British Columbia and Alberta over the Pacific Link pipeline, designated under Bill C-5, underscore ongoing disputes over consultation and accommodation obligations.