Dehcho grand chief welcomes calls to abolish the Indian Act

A growing push to abolish the Indian Act is gaining support in the Northwest Territories. Dene Chieftain Herb Noriega says it's time to move beyond the 150-year-old law that governs much of the relationship between First Nations and Ottawa. We've always said that the Indian Act was discriminatory, it was, you know, racist, and that we need to get rid of it, and we've done everything we could to do that. Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew called for the act to be abolished on Monday, and Prime Minister Mark Carney says he's open to the idea. Noriega says ending the act could give Métis groups equal footing in the Dene chauss ongoing negotiations with Ottawa. Some NWT First Nations have already moved away from parts of the act through self-government agreements. Noriega hopes the Dene chauss can do the same. But replacing the law is more complicated for First Nations without those agreements. There would be a very difficult situation if it were simply abolished. I think what we heard Prime Minister Carney say is that he was open to looking at it and moving forward. And I think in the words that he used, and he didn't say abolish as Premier Kinew did, but he said, let's undertake a process because I think he understands that constitutional obligation. um it there needs to be some kind of federal legislation or some kind of law uh legal mechanism for first nation rights to be recognized under the constitution and articulated in a way that um very clearly sets out obligations on the government of canada to do things and also that does create some kind of mechanism so that communities can track who are the people who belong to them. I think ultimately, you know, the Indian Act, a lot of the problems related to it really stem from the profound instability that it creates. It creates instability around membership, people being able to access their own communities and formally be a part of them. It creates this bureaucratic system based in Ottawa, but we see throughout Canada that funds First Nation governments in a way that is inherently destabilizing. It not only is the act itself, but it's the apparatus that has grown up around that act, which is fundamentally flawed. Earl Bakker Fox says this isn't the first time people have wanted to get rid of the Indian Act. But historically, it's been difficult to get everyone on the same page at the same time.