Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew’s recent call to abolish the Indian Act has sparked renewed debate about the future of Indigenous rights and self-government in so-called Canada.
Speaking at a meeting between First Nations leaders, premiers, and Prime Minister Mark Carney in Ottawa on October 26, Kinew held up his status card and questioned why Canada still uses legislation dating back to 1876 to determine who is legally recognized as having Indian status.
Kinew argued that the law is incompatible with Canada’s stated commitment to reconciliation and called for its abolition. Carney welcomed the proposal, promising to work with First Nations on a process to move beyond the Indian Act. The following day, however, he clarified that the process could lead to reform rather than abolition.
Debate over the Indian Act
The proposal has reopened a debate that Indigenous people have been having for generations.The Indian Act has been used to control First Nations communities, impose colonial systems of governance, and determine who Canada recognizes as having formal Indian status. It is a law rooted in dispossession and assimilation.
However, abolishing the Indian Act is not necessarily a step toward ending colonialism. The debate is not only about whether to abolish the Indian Act, but about who has the authority to decide what replaces it.
While Kinew and Carney discussed reconciliation behind closed doors, Indigenous land defenders and grassroots organizers gathered outside of the meeting to protest the federal government’s push for environmental extraction and the exclusion of community voices from high-level political discussions. The demonstration specifically challenged Bill C-39, the proposed Building Canada Strong Act, which would fast-track approvals for extraction projects like mining and pipelines. It would allow Ottawa to designate entire regions for accelerated development, something Indigenous leaders have warned would threaten Indigenous jurisdiction, environmental protections, and the right to free, prior, and informed consent. Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chief Na’Moks criticized restrictions on media access, while Ramon Kataquapit, a member of the Chiefs of Ontario’s Youth Council, challenged that meetings between political leaders do not substitute for meaningful consultation and consent.
Inside, participation was limited. The Assembly of First Nations had been allocated 44 seats in the main meeting room, while other chiefs were directed to viewing rooms or other ways to submit concerns. There are more than 600 First Nations chiefs across Canada.
The meeting was supposed to offer First Nations leaders an opportunity to speak directly with Canada’s premiers and prime minister. But the protests highlighted concerns about who gets represented, whose priorities shape the discussion, and who really makes the decisions.
These questions matter because the Indian Act is not simply an outdated piece of legislation. It is part of a much larger system through which Canada continues to exercise power over Indigenous lands, resources, and political life.
We’ve heard this before
In 1969, Pierre Trudeau’s Liberal government tried to abolish the Indian Act through what became known as the White Paper. The government claimed it wanted equality. Its proposal would have eliminated Indian status, undermined treaty relationships, and transferred federal responsibilities to the provinces. Indigenous communities mobilised against it because they understood that treating everyone the same under Canadian law would not undo generations of stolen land and colonial control.
Their resistance forced the government to withdraw the proposal.
The lesson was not that the Indian Act should exist forever. It was that Indigenous people must determine what replaces it, and that Canada cannot use the need for reform as an excuse to abandon its responsibilities. This matters now because Indian status is the connection to federal services many First Nations people depend on, including prescription medications, dental care, vision care, and mental health supports.
Any replacement must protect these services, as well as reserve lands, treaty relationships, and federal obligations. Our rights existed before the Indian Act. They do not depend on Canada’s permission. But dismantling a colonial law should not mean dismantling the protections and services that Indigenous people have fought to secure.
The consultation trap
There is another danger in this debate: what some critics call the consultation trap.
Governments announce a plan, invite Indigenous leaders to meetings, and ask communities for their input. But when those meetings are over, Canada holds the power to decide what happens next. Participation can then be presented as reconciliation, even when the people most affected have no control over the outcome.
The fight over Bill S-2, An Act to amend the Indian Act, shows how consultation can also become an excuse for doing nothing. The bill addresses discriminatory Indian status rules, including the second-generation cut-off, which prevents some First Nations people from passing status to their children. Indigenous women’s rights advocates have been fighting these rules for decades.
On October 21, Musqueam activist Zoë Craig-Sparrow joined other activists and parliamentarians in Ottawa to demand action. She described how the second-generation cut-off prevents her children from inheriting family property on reserve and threatens the continuity of First Nations families.
The Senate has proposed amendments that would allow status to be passed on when one parent has status. But Indigenous Services Minister Mandy Gull-Masty has argued that further consultation is necessary to avoid unintended consequences.
Consultation is important. First Nations have different legal relationships, political traditions, and priorities, and governments should not impose one solution on everyone. But there is a difference between consulting to protect people’s rights and using consultation to delay those rights.
NDP MP Leah Gazan accused the government of using consultation as cover for delaying changes to discriminatory status rules, even as it has fast-tracked legislation to advance environmental extraction projects. This contrast raises an obvious question: Why do governments rush when corporations want access to Indigenous lands, but delay when Indigenous families demand an end to discrimination?
Economic reconciliation for whom?
At the October 26 meeting, Carney outlined plans to expand Indigenous participation in major infrastructure and resource projects. His government proposed exploring a First Nations Sovereign Wealth Fund, supposedly expanding access to financing and creating more opportunities for Indigenous workers. These proposals claim to bring jobs, investment, and revenue to communities that have been denied economic opportunities.
Many First Nations band councils are engaging with these proposals. But there is a difference between sharing in the profits of a project and having the authority to decide whether that project should happen at all. What good is a share of the revenue if a community cannot protect its drinking water? What does self-government mean if Canada still controls how Indigenous land is used? And what kind of economic reconciliation leaves ordinary Indigenous people struggling to afford housing, food, and healthcare while corporations continue to profit from the destruction of our territories?
Métis socialist Howard Adams raised similar questions decades ago.
In Prison of Grass (1975), Adams argued that Indigenous oppression is about more than racist laws. It is also about who controls the land, who holds economic power, and who benefits from Indigenous dispossession. Adams warned that political leadership could become tied to government institutions while ordinary people continue to experience poverty and inequality. His answer was to build movements rooted in the struggles of Indigenous people themselves.
Indigenous thinkers Glen Coulthard, and Leanne Betasamosake Simpson have approached these questions in different ways, challenging the idea that government recognition can deliver liberation. Lee Maracle’s work also emphasizes Indigenous resurgence and community self-determination. Their work reminds us that Indigenous sovereignty is not something Ottawa gives us.It comes from our nations, our lands, our customs, and our relationships with one another.
Change has always come from organizing
If we want to understand how Indigenous people can win meaningful change, we should look beyond Parliament and government meetings. We need to look at the people who have organized to defend their communities.
In 1990, Kanien’kehá land defenders at Kanehsatà stood against the expansion of a golf course onto sacred burial grounds and a pine forest. The Canadian government responded with police and soldiers.
The land defenders, however, were not alone. Indigenous people from across Turtle Island organized in solidarity. Students, workers, and anti-racist activists helped raise money, deliver supplies, and challenge the racism directed at the Mohawk people.
We have seen that same strength in Mi’kma’ki.
In 2013, Mi’kmaw land defenders at Elsipogtog organized against fracking on their territory. They were joined by Acadian communities, environmental activists, and supporters from across the region. They faced police raids and arrests. But they continued organizing, and in 2014 New Brunswick introduced a moratorium on hydraulic fracturing.
Along the Shubenacadie River, Mi’kmaw grandmothers and water protectors led years of resistance against the Alton Gas project on Sipekne’katik territory.They organized ceremonies, maintained a presence on the land, and brought together people who understood that protecting the water was everyone’s responsibility. In 2021, the Alton Gas project was cancelled. More recently, Mi’kmaw land protectors at Hunter’s Mountain in Cape Breton have challenged forestry activities on their territory.
These struggles are about more than stopping individual projects. They are about communities coming together to defend the land, exercise their rights, and make decisions about their own futures. They show what can happen when Indigenous people organize collectively rather than wait for governments to deliver change.
Our communities need more than promises
For too long, reconciliation has been something politicians talk about while Indigenous people continue to live with the consequences of colonialism. Governments apologize for residential schools while Indigenous children remain disproportionately involved in child welfare systems. They acknowledge treaty rights while communities fight to protect our land and water. They speak about economic opportunity while Indigenous people struggle with poverty, homelessness, and inadequate access to healthcare.
These are not separate problems. They are connected. And they won’t be solved simply by changing the name of a law or creating another government program.
We need homes our people can access. We need accessible healthcare and education. We need clean water and safe communities. We need treaty rights respected and Indigenous lands protected. We also need the political authority and material resources to make these things possible.
That means challenging the idea that Indigenous self-government should simply involve taking responsibility for underfunded services while Canada keeps control of the wealth generated from our land. And it means building movements that can hold both Canadian governments and Indigenous political leadership accountable to the people they represent.
Building a movement from below
The history of Indigenous resistance shows us that we cannot rely on governments alone to deliver change.
The 1969 White Paper was defeated because Indigenous people organized.
Land defenders at Kanehsatà:ke, Elsipogtog, and Sipekne’katik showed what communities can accomplish when we stand together. Movements like Idle No More brought thousands of people into the streets to challenge attacks on Indigenous rights and the environment.
That history offers a direction for the current debate.
We need community meetings, political education, grassroots organizations, and movements that bring people together around the issues affecting our everyday lives. We need to connect the fight for Indigenous sovereignty with struggles for better housing, public healthcare, decent jobs, and environmental protection. And we need solidarity from non-Indigenous workers, students, labour unions, and community organizations who understand that defending Indigenous rights is part of building a more just society.
That means more than wearing orange shirts or attending reconciliation events.
It means standing with Indigenous communities when we oppose destructive projects, challenging racism, supporting land defenders, and demanding that colonial governments honour their obligations. It also means recognizing that Indigenous nations must determine their own political futures.
A future worth fighting for
The Indian Act should not define the future of Indigenous peoples, and neither should the federal government.
We deserve more than a new relationship in which Canada continues to control our lands, corporations continue to profit from our resources, and ordinary Indigenous people are left struggling to make ends meet. We deserve communities where everyone has a safe place to live, access to healthcare, clean water, and the ability to build a good life. We deserve governments that answer to our people, not corporate interests or the priorities of Ottawa. And we deserve the freedom to determine our own futures according to our own laws, traditions, and responsibilities.
Abolishing the Indian Act may be part of that future, but it is not a matter of checking boxes. The measure of any reform should not be how many meetings were held or how many Indigenous leaders were invited to Ottawa.
It should be whether Indigenous nations gain real autonomy over our lands and futures, whether treaty rights and essential services are protected, and whether people’s lives materially improve.
Real change will not come from consultation alone or a promise made in Ottawa. It will come from Indigenous people organizing together, defending our lands, and building the power to decide our own futures.
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