Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew and Prime Minister Mark Carney both said the Indian Act should be scrapped, while a discussion with Indigenous law scholar John Borrows highlighted complications in repeal and replacement.
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Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew said the Indian Act should be abolished, a position he said drew agreement from Prime Minister Mark Carney, who also called for the act to be scrapped.
The Indian Act was passed in 1876, with the legislation originally aimed at assimilating Indigenous people into Eurocentric ways of living, including rules that govern where they live, where children go to school and who they are.
In a discussion hosted by Maria Kestane with John Borrows, the Loveland Chair in Indigenous Law at the University of Toronto’s faculty of law, Borrows spoke about differing approaches that could be used to repeal and replace the act.
The discussion also noted that some Indigenous leaders believe Ottawa should keep the Indian Act in place, even as debate continues over how it should be handled.
Borrows is described as a leading voice in Indigenous governance across Canada.
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