3 “We are on the outside looking in [. . .]. But we are still Indians”

Alberta Indigenous Women Fighting for Status Rights, 1968–85

Corinne George

In November 1973, Nellie Carlson wrote a letter to Jean Chrétien, minister of Indian and Northern Affairs, on behalf of the Alberta committee of Indian Rights for Indian Women (IRIW), saying, “At the present time, Indian women are denied the freedom of marriage and should they choose to exercise that right despite section 12(1)(b) of the Indian Act, she faces exclusion from her home, the deprivation of her rights and most importantly her identity as an Indian is diminished.”¹ Carlson’s letter was one of many requests made to the federal government to address the oppressive elements of the Indian Act. She and a number of Indigenous women in Alberta and throughout the country rallied specifically to ensure that their identity as “Indian women” was acknowledged in the act.

This chapter focuses on the activism of Nellie Carlson, Jenny Margetts, and Christine Daniels, three Alberta women who were central to the formation of both the Alberta committee of IRIW and the national organization. Their aims were to lobby for changes to the Indian Act and educate others on the plight of Indigenous women. Women like Carlson, Margetts, and Daniels who were involved in IRIW maintained their identities as “Indian” (hereafter Indian) women, retained a strong connection to Indigenous culture and identity, and resisted forced assimilation through the Indian Act, which had caused them to move from their home communities. After years of struggle, in 1985 the Indian Act was amended through Bill C-31. While the women involved in IRIW were ultimately successful, they faced opposition along the way. Much of the opposition to the IRIW stemmed from personal and community connections to oil and gas resources, concerns about potential overcrowding on reserves, and fear that changing the Indian Act would have negative impacts on treaty rights.

Historian Olive Dickason contends that the main purpose of the Indian Act was assimilation.² That goal made the act contentious. Another aspect was also controversial: the act discriminated against Indigenous women and their freedom to marry whomever they chose. Starting in 1869, section 6 decreed that if an Indian woman married a non-Indian, she would lose her status.³ From 1869 to 1951, this portion of the act underwent minor revisions. In 1876, this section became part of the Indian Act, as section 3(3)(c) of which read as follows:

Provided that any Indian woman marrying any other than an Indian or non-treaty Indian shall cease to be an Indian in any respect within the meaning of this Act, except that she shall be entitled to share equally with the members of the band to which she formerly belonged, in the annual or semi-annual distribution of their annuities, interest moneys and rents; but this income may be commuted to her at any time at ten years’ purchase with the consent of the band.⁴

This meant that even after losing their status by “marrying out,” Indigenous women could still receive shares of the bands’ annual payments. They could also opt to receive a lump sum worth approximately ten years of their annual share. The sums offered were normally quite low, however.

From 1876 to 1951, this provision remained largely unchanged. In the 1951 revisions to the Indian Act, the section 12(1)(b) was amended to read “the following persons are not entitled to be registered, namely a woman who is married to a person who is not an Indian.”⁵ The 1951 change stripped the few remaining band rights of non-status Indigenous women. An Indian woman who “married out”—married a man who was not Indian (or did not have Indian status)—was no longer registered or recognized as an Indian under the Indian Act. This 1951 amendment also provided that if an Indian woman’s husband died or abandoned her, she would lose Indian status; her status was conditional on his.⁶ These are only some examples of gender discrimination within the Indian Act. Kathleen Jamieson outlined further elements of the Indian Act that discriminated against Indigenous women:

The woman, on marriage must leave her parents’ home and her reserve. She may not own property on the reserve and must dispose of any property she does hold. She may be prevented from inheriting property left to her by her parents. She cannot take any further part in band business. Her children are not recognized as Indian and are therefore denied access to cultural and social amenities of the Indian community. And most punitive of all, she may be prevented from returning to live with her family on the reserve, even if she is in dire need, very ill, a widow, divorced or separated. Finally, her body may not be buried on the reserve with those of her forebearers.⁷

Indigenous women in Alberta and across the country who were discriminated against in the Indian Act outwardly challenged a system designed to marginalize them and their identities. Through actively challenging the Indian Act, these women were in fact challenging colonialism at all levels; politically, culturally, and socially. Yet, like the broader history of Indigenous women in urban areas, the story of the Alberta activists is only partially told. In 2013, Linda Goyette shared the experiences of Nellie Carlson and Kathleen Steinhauer, writing that “throughout their lives, Nellie and Kathleen have rejected the Canadian government’s never-ending attempts to define, legislate, and restrict the identity of First Nations, Métis and Inuit peoples.”⁸ Goyette outlines Carlson’s and Steinhauer’s engagement in the struggle but acknowledges that the account is somewhat fragmented because some details were based on conversations, while others were based on notes and other recordings.⁹

Using oral history interviews carried out with seven Indigenous women, this chapter builds on and adds to the scholarship on Indigenous women activists in urban settings, particularly in Edmonton from 1951 to 1985. During that time, Indigenous women still contended with stereotypes and discrimination, yet they were vocal in addressing these issues and worked to dispel myths and create a more welcoming environment for Indigenous people in urban settings.

Carlson, Daniels, and Margetts were Cree from Saddle Lake reserve in Alberta. All eventually lost their status and moved away from the reserve. Carlson was born on 3 July 1927.¹⁰ In 1947, she married a man whose mother was Indian and whose father was Swedish, which meant that Carlson’s husband and their children were non-status.¹¹ She became what was described as a “red ticket holder”—married to a non-status man yet living on reserve.¹² When she moved off reserve in 1956, Carlson removed her name from the band list. One of the reasons she chose to move away from the reserve was that her doctor (who was Métis) had informed her that she could not actively speak out against the Indian Act if she was a status Indian.¹³ In 1963, Carlson and her husband moved farther away from her family and reserve, to Edmonton, to attend to her husband’s health problems. Carlson’s husband was unable to access health services on the reserve because he was not recognized as a status Indian.

Daniels (née Whiskeyjack) was a co-founder of the Voice of Alberta Native Women’s Society (VANWS), where she addressed concerns about treaty women losing their rights when they married non-treaty men.¹⁴ VANWS was created in 1968, after a group of Alberta Indigenous women congregated at the Mayfair Hotel in Edmonton for the First Alberta Native Women’s Conference.¹⁵ VANWS, like IRIW, was created as a way for Indigenous women to come together and fight the discrimination they experienced as the result of sexism, racism, and colonialism. However, while IRIW focused on the issue of Indigenous women’s status, VANWS focused on multiple issues that affected Indigenous women and families, such as Native foster care programs, ways to keep one’s Indigenous identity while working in modern jobs or attending university, and, of course, the issues around marriage and status in the Indian Act. VANWS took up both treaty and Métis women’s interests.

Margetts, a co-founder of IRIW, was born on 14 June 1936. She lost her Indian status in 1960 after marrying a non-Indian man and moving to Edmonton.¹⁶

One of the events that helped to stimulate the formation of IRIW was the First Alberta Native Women’s Conference in Edmonton in 1968. Organized by the same group of women who formed VANWS following the conference, this gathering of Indigenous women was one of the first forums where Indigenous women could discuss the discrimination they experienced.¹⁷ Some of the presentations given at the conference were “The Role of Native Women,” by Mary Anne Lavelle; “Challenges Facing Native Women Today,” by Alice Mustos; and “Challenges Facing Métis Women,” by Clara Yellowknee.¹⁸ The conference sparked further grassroots organization among Indigenous women. Another precedent to IRIW was the formation of Equal Rights for Indian Women in 1969 by Mary Two-Axe Early, a Mohawk from Kahnawake, Québec, who founded the group to address discriminatory sections of the Indian Act.¹⁹

Another catalyst was the Jeanette Lavell legal case, which was initiated in 1970.²⁰ Lavell was an “Ojibwa woman” who had married a non-Indian, lost her status, and then challenged the deletion of her name from the band list. Lavell was joined in her case by Yvonne Bédard, a Six Nations woman who had lost her Indian status upon marrying out but who had subsequently separated from her husband. Bédard was fighting the Six Nations band council’s attempts to evict her from the reserve and from the house that had been willed to her by her mother.²¹ During the court process, the number of Indigenous women and children who had lost their status because of section 12 was revealed to be six thousand.²² Lillian Shirt, also from Saddle Lake and a sister of Jenny Margetts, recalled the personal impact on her family and the pain caused by that section of the Indian Act:

We could not go back to the reserve, if the woman married, we were not an Indian, if we married a white man. And that was unjust also. So, she [Jenny] registered an organization called ‘Indian Rights for Indian Women.’. . . At that time, my sister Ursula had two children, had just had a miscarriage, got chased off the reserve . . . and my dad cried. And I remember my dad looking at my sister Ursula and her family in the wagon . . . the team of horses pulling this cow and rope and a couple of horses and a rope. And my dad standing at the window . . . “Ah-hu-ya!! . . .” and he held . . . he put his hand to his heart, he said, “it hurts.”²³

As part of the education and activism stimulated by the Lavell case, in 1972 a panel was organized by Daniels and others at the University of Calgary. The panel heard from Margetts, Lavell, and Philamene Ross, along with two status women who opposed their views. Margetts explained, “I strongly recommended this kind of exposure before the Supreme Court hearing in April. [. . .] Strong action is definitely needed to make the government aware of this injustice done to Indian women.”²⁴ In January 1973, another step was taken when a newsletter authored by Margetts announced the formation of the Alberta Committee of IRIW. Its first act was to conduct a workshop to promote understanding of the Indian Act and the Canadian Bill of Rights, which had been passed in 1960. She hoped that women in other provinces would commit to similar approaches to educate the public on the Indian Act’s injustices toward Indian women.²⁵ Reflecting on that critical juncture, Carlson recalled that Alberta Indigenous women responded to the call to support Lavell by formally registering the Indian Rights for Indian Women as an organization: “There were fifteen of us that were really determined in the Alberta committee. We registered the organization, and we went and supported the Supreme Court case . . . Jeanette Lavell’s case.”²⁶

It came as a shock to Lavell and her supporters when, on 27 August 1973, a majority (but not unanimous) decision of the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that section 12 of the Indian Act did not in fact discriminate against women. Carlson and others, however, were encouraged that a minority opinion, held by Chief Bora Laskin, argued that—in Carlson’s words—“it’s up to the parliament to change this Act. And so, again, we started all over again and we lobbied the government. [. . .] [F]or seventeen years we lobbied.”²⁷

Through the IRIW, Indigenous women activists in Alberta sought to protest the decision and educate other Indigenous people as well as other members of Canadian society about the legal discrimination in the act. On 22 October 1973, IRIW staged a demonstration in front of the legislative buildings in Edmonton to protest the Lavell decision.²⁸ The action was among many that took place simultaneously across Canada. Brief and peaceful, the demonstration was described by the Native People, a publication of the Alberta Native Communications Society, as “a day of mourning in reference to the Canadian Bill of Rights which until the August 27th decision assured equality before the law as a right belonging to all Canadians.”²⁹ Some demonstrators wore black to illustrate their feelings of disappointment. Carlson, who was a prominent figure at this demonstration, once again pledged her commitment to continue to fight.³⁰

Education was an important vehicle in the campaign. In March 1977, Margetts spoke at a Native Land Claims conference at the University of Alberta. She stressed her Indigenous identity despite the fact that the Indian Act did not recognize her as such. The Native People reported that although she was married to a non-Native, “Mrs. Margetts refuses to consider herself and women like her as anything other than Indians in spite of enfranchisement regulations.”³¹ So important was the issue, Margetts argued, that it needed to be addressed before land claims were pursued.

In November 1977, Margetts requested federal funding to allow IRIW to undertake a national research project on the issue of Indigenous women’s rights across Canada. She added that if funding were to materialize, it should be used to gather historical, ethnographic, and sociological data on Native women’s rights.³² The Native People published an article describing a workshop organized by IRIW, titled “National Indian Rights for Women,” held in April 1978 in St. Albert, Alberta.³³ Twenty-nine women from across Canada attended this workshop to discuss issues surrounding the status of Indian women, their spouses, and their children. The experiences shared at the 1978 workshop were used in Kathleen Jamieson’s book Indian Women and the Law in Canada: Citizens Minus. In November 1978, IRIW held its fifth annual conference in Edmonton. Sixty delegates from the western Prairie provinces attended. In an interview published in the Native People, Margetts explained,

We are told that the government recognizes the injustices of the present situation and that they are prepared to make changes. But what changes? Now is the time to put on the pressures to make sure that the changes made are ones that will meet our needs and help eliminate discrimination. Our children cannot be deprived of their heritage and inheritance. They deserve a promising future and only we can make it happen for them.³⁴

In these efforts to revise the Indian Act, Margetts strongly recommended unity among Indigenous people. A common response was critical to effecting change. Margetts also sought more open discussion among Indigenous people. Her group had approached reserve communities in the province to hold informational and consultative meetings, but some communities denied them permission. The delegates left the conference determined to be involved in the consultative process and to continue lobbying for changes to the Indian Act.³⁵

The women of IRIW faced tremendous opposition. As they vocalized their grievances, opposition from some Indigenous organizations and the federal government emerged. A 1978 Edmonton Journal article explained that some Indigenous leaders in Alberta feared an influx of women and their non-Indigenous husbands returning to the reserves and sharing in the band resources, which often included oil and gas revenues. Although a number of Indigenous organizations supported Indigenous women, some leaders were unsympathetic, arguing, “They knew what they were giving up when they decided to get married.”³⁶ Carlson reflected on her experiences during this period of conflict: “We were followed everywhere, our phones were tapped, our mail was confiscated . . . simply because we said, ‘We are Indian women of Canada and we lost the rights that we were rightfully born with.’ That was the punishment we received.”³⁷ To this day, Carlson does not know who tapped their phones or who was sent to follow her and others. But even without these specifics, her recollection illuminates the hostility felt by some toward the activism of Carlson and others like her.

A breakthrough came in 1981, when Sandra Lovelace, a Maliseet woman who lost her status and band membership when she married a non-Indian man, challenged the Canadian government through the United Nations Human Rights Committee. The UNHRC found the government of Canada in breach of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and concluded that section 12(1)(b) of the Indian Act was sexually discriminatory. Shamed domestically and internationally, in 1985 the government of Canada finally yielded.³⁸ On 28 June 1985, Bill C-31 was passed to end sexual discrimination in the Indian Act. It also eliminated regulated enfranchisement of Indigenous people, provided for the reinstatement of women who had lost their status, and, for the first time since Confederation, gave power to the bands to formulate and administer their own membership codes.³⁹ In other words, the legal process for terminating a person’s Indian status and conferring full Canadian citizenship no longer existed.⁴⁰ As a result of the change, 16,200 people who had been disinherited regained their status. Complications remained, including the termination of status after two generations of intermarriage between Indians and non-Indians and the restrictive membership codes of some, but not all, bands.⁴¹ Yet despite the challenges, Indigenous women won a significant fight to address some of their grievances against the discriminatory sections of the Indian Act.

Carlson, Daniels, and Margetts were among the many women across Canada active at the grassroots level of the IRIW. These women were unrelenting in their efforts, with their activism taking the form of lobbying and education. Connection to community and family and economic well-being were among the reasons why having status, keeping band membership, and maintaining the option to live on the reserves were so significant. In striving to reclaim a place in Indigenous society and within the community that was rightfully theirs, they were adamant that discriminatory federal legislation would not dictate their identities as Indian women.