Jeanette Lavell's Case Study

Prior to 1981 it was stated that if an indigenous women married a non-indigenous or non-status man she would lose her status. Meaning she is no longer aloud to live on reserve land. Many Indigenous women were upset over this matter and filed a court complaint. In 1970 Jeanette Corbiere Lavell married a European man, which made her lose her status. She filed a discrimination court case and argued that it violated gender equality under the Canadian Bill of Rights. Lavell ended up losing her trial, but she won an appeal. This case was taken to the Supreme Court but lost in 1973. After this case there was further talk by the Indigenous and European communities, in 1985 bill C-31 was passed, which ended women being able to be married out of status. …show more content…
There is countless missing people across Canada but the majority of them are aboriginal. A good portion of those missing women will never be found or will be found dead. As an Indigenous women you are ___ times more likely to go missing then a white Canadian female. This is a huge problem in Canada and recently we finally got an inquiry into it. However women were not always seen as equal to the government. As previously stated gender inequality was present when the government was taking away status. Although women used to be seen as a very prominent figure in Indigenous culture. Indigenous people have different cultural practices, they believe there is a creator that created everything on earth. Furthermore, since women give birth they were also a very prominent figure in the …show more content…
This distrust stems from past and current laws. The government have treated the Indigenous communities unethically and unequal since the Europeans first encounter when the Europeans tried to civilize them by teaching them education and religion. Civilization then led to residential schools where they “Took the Indian out of the child (man?)”. Furthermore, Bill C-31 is still currently being used to eliminate Indigenous status. Bill C-31 states the two generation cut-off clause. The two generation cut-off clause means that if you marry someone that is non-status their two times great grandchildren will no longer be status. Eventually there could be no more status Indigenous people due to this law, although there would still be treaty land which belongs to the crown. Furthermore, Indigenous people don’t own the land on reserves, the crown government does and can grant you ownership of rights. The Indian Act states “No Indian is lawfully in possession of land on (the?a?) reserve”. Reserve land cannot be built on without permission from the crown. For example if you wanted to build a house or a business on the land you would have to ask the crown first. Since the government owns the land it is a way that the government used to civilize the people. Although they are on the crowns land and the crown determines how the land can be used, this attributes to a lot of environmental