Senate unanimously passes bill to eliminate Indian Act’s 2nd-generation cut-off

The Senate voted unanimously Thursday in favor of Bill S-2 with an amendment calling for the removal of the Indian Act’s second-generation cap.

Senators voted 63-0 in favor of the motion with eight abstentions.

“Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought I would be sitting in a Senate committee, reading an amendment to delete subsection 6(2) of the Indian Act,” said Paul Prosper, a Mi’kmaw senator representing Nova Scotia, in a speech before the vote.

Subsection 6(2) or the second generation limit refers to a rule in the Indian Act under which children are not eligible to obtain Indian status. after two generations of a father without status. It was added to the law in 1985.

“It was a guarantee that we would eventually be assimilated into Canadian society, since legislators at the time knew that we could not survive if we were relegated to marrying only among ourselves to preserve status,” Prosper told the Senate.

Bill S-2 was originally designed as the latest in a series of amendments to the Indian Act to address persistent sex-based discrimination in registration, often tied to historic emancipation, the renunciation of status to become a “full citizen.”

But during hearings of the Senate Standing Committee on Indigenous Peoples, First Nations leaders, advocates and community members shared deeply personal testimonies about how the separation of the second generation has fractured families and damaged communities.

This led to amendments to the bill to end second generation cutting and restore a one-parent rule for eligibility for the status.

Prosper told the Senate The impact of the amendments could affect approximately 300,000 people over the next 40 years.

Ahead of Thursday’s vote, Senator Jane McCallum, a citizen of Barren Lands First Nation in Manitoba, urged her colleagues to support the amended bill.

“I ask everyone to support First Nations, particularly First Nations women and children, and vote to pass Bill S-2 as amended,” McCallum said.

He noted that apart from one First Nation who was against the entirety of Bill S-2, the rest of those who gave testimony had “an almost unanimous consensus.”

““The remainder, which included Indigenous women’s organizations, individuals, experts, elders and youth, as well as individual First Nations and First Nations organizations that together represent all First Nations in Canada, supported removing the second-generation limit,” she said.

“It’s important for the Senate to understand how important this is.“

Now that the Senate has passed Bill S-2, it will move to the House of Commons. Parliamentarians must also vote on whether to accept the Senate amendments.