2. Women's Perspectives - Christian Aboriginal Infrastructure ...

The marrying out provisions that had caused such distress to Indian women, their families
and communities were repeated in the now infamous subsection 12(1)(b) and were
actually strengthened in the new act by connecting them to the concept of involuntary
enfranchisement via subsection 108(2). Henceforth, an Indian woman who married out
would not only lose Indian status, she could also be enfranchised against her will as of
the date of her marriage. These provisions are seen by Indian women as having been
particularly discriminatory and ultimately highly damaging to them.
Such a woman lost any claim to Indian status — under the new rules, upon marriage she
was not entitled to registration. Like generations of women before her who had married
out, loss of status meant loss of the right under Canadian law to hold land on the reserve
and loss of status for any children of the marriage. With the loss of status and
membership came the forced sale or disposal of any reserve lands she may have held.
Adding forced enfranchisement to loss of status meant that she was also struck off the
band list and was no longer entitled to distributions of band moneys.
Before these new provisions were introduced in 1951, women who had lost their Indian
status through marrying out had often been able to retain their links to their communities.
Some Indian agencies would issue an informal identity card known as a 'red ticket'
identifying such women as entitled to share in band treaty moneys and, in many cases, to
continue to live on the reserve. 32 Because they were no longer legally Indians but
remained members of the reserve community by virtue of band practice and their red
tickets, the precise status in law of such women was unclear to Indian affairs officials and
the general Canadian public. With forced enfranchisement upon marrying out, there
could no longer be doubt in anyone's mind that they were not Indian and, moreover, not
part of any Indian community.
Nonetheless, Indian women who had married out before the 1951 changes were permitted
to keep their red ticket status if they did not accept a lump sum settlement in exchange for
their treaty payments. However, an amendment to the Indian Act in 1956 stopped this
practice. After 1956, 'red ticket' women were paid a lump sum of 10 times the average
annual amount of all payments paid over the preceding 10 years. These women were put
in the same unfavourable position as Indian women who married out after the 1951
revision. 33
The children of mixed marriages were not mentioned in the 1951 legislation. Despite the
lack of legal authority for it, enfranchisement was forced on them too, under subsection
108(2). To correct this injustice, in 1956 Indian status was restored to these children. But
the 1956 Indian Act amendments also allowed the governor in council "by order [to]
declare that all or any of her children are enfranchised as of the date of the marriage or
any such other date as the order may specify". 34 While there do not appear to be any
common or consistent criteria regarding how the discretion of the governor in council
was to be exercised, the usual practice was that off-reserve children were enfranchised
but children living on-reserve were allowed to keep their status.
29