THE STANDING SENATE COMMITTEE ON INDIGENOUS PEOPLES
EVIDENCE
OTTAWA, Wednesday, November 19, 2025
The Standing Senate Committee on Indigenous Peoples met with videoconference this day at 6:51 p.m. [ET] to consider Bill S-2, An Act to amend the Indian Act (new registration entitlements).
Senator Margo Greenwood (Deputy Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Deputy Chair: Good evening, honourable senators. Before we begin, I ask all senators and other in-person participants to consult the cards on the table for guidelines to present audio feedback incidents. Please make sure to keep your earpiece away from all microphones at all times. When you are not using your earpiece, place it face down on the sticker placed on the table for this purpose. Thank you all for your cooperation.
I begin now by acknowledging that the land on which we gather is the traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the Anishinaabe Algonquin Nation and is now home to many other First Nations, Métis, and Inuit Peoples from across Turtle Island.
I am Senator Margo Greenwood. I am Nêhiyaw from Treaty 6 territory in what is now known as Alberta. I am the Deputy Chair of the Committee on Indigenous Peoples.
I remind my honourable colleagues that, at our first public meeting, on September 24, Senator Michèle Audette, chair of this committee and sponsor of Bill S-2, recused herself from her role as chair for the duration of this study in order to preserve its neutrality. It is my honour and privilege to chair this important meeting today.
Honourable senators, Bill S-2, An Act to amend the Indian Act (new registration entitlements), was adopted with amendments during our meeting yesterday morning. I will also remind my honourable colleagues that during that same meeting yesterday, the committee agreed to consider appending observations to the report on Bill S-2. Does the committee wish to consider the observations in camera? Yea or nay?
Some Hon. Senators: Nay.
The Deputy Chair: Okay. They are public.
I understand that we have received some draft observations. I know that I have some from Senator Prosper. Senator Prosper, can I invite you to speak to those, please?
Senator Prosper: Yes. Thank you, Madam Chair, for giving me this opportunity.
I believe my office has provided some draft observations. They have gone for translation. Some of them are self-explanatory. Shall I read them into the record?
The Deputy Chair: Do all senators have a copy of the observations?
Some Hon. Senators: Yes.
The Deputy Chair: There are five paragraphs. We must read them into the record. Senator Prosper, please proceed.
Senator Prosper: I’ll go through them.
Number one:
The committee believes that a clear, statutory commitment is required that provides adequate, sustainable and predictable funding to First Nations for the administration of new regulations. Currently, First Nations are already chronically underfunded and many are unable to support current membership levels. Without investments, First Nations will continue to bear the administrative and financial burdens current and increased membership levels.
Number two:
This committee recognizes that the ultimate goal, as described by witnesses through their testimony and briefs, is self-determination. Moving away from status and membership altogether and toward citizenship would be in line with Articles 6 and 9 of UNDRIP. Until such time as the Indian Act can be fully repealed, it is critical that Canada abide by its commitment in 2021 with the passage of UNDA, and take the necessary measures to ensure that the Act is in line with UNDRIP. This committee recognizes and affirms that First Nations people best know who belongs and that the ultimate authority to decide who is a citizen of their nation rests with the nation itself.
Number three:
The loss of status and connection to community has also cut people off from their Treaty relationship with Canada. As we heard from Chiefs Bear and Whitford, it is imperative that any restoration of status also carry the recognition of Treaty entitlements. This committee calls on the Government to fully restore Treaty entitlements and benefits to those who regain their status.
Number four:
No other Canadian law includes a bar to compensation for discrimination. The committee heard from witnesses who contend that the bars to compensation violate the Charter, and international treaties Canada has ratified. This committee agrees that First Nations women should not have to litigate in order to eliminate this bar.
And number five:
While S-2 provides the ability for those who regain their status or those who were automatically transferred to their husband’s band to return to their natal band, it does so only for those bands who band memberships are still maintained by the Department. It should not be optional for a band that manages its own membership list to also allow this. This committee believes that denying women and their descendants the right to register themselves onto s.10 band lists is a violation of the Charter.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you, Senator Prosper. I would now like to go back to each of these independently. I would invite discussion, if you have any comment on each of these articles. We can start with number one.
Do I hear any comment, debate or discussion on the first proposed observation by Senator Prosper? We are in agreement to accept? Okay.
Let’s move to the second observation. I would invite any comment, debate, consideration? You are agreeable? We’ll move on.
Observation number 3? Any debate, conversation or comment? Okay. We are in agreement.
Number 4? Any comments?
Senator Pate: I don’t know if you thought about this, Senator Prosper. I’m sorry; if I had thought about it before this moment, I would have raised it had with you, but I am wondering if we could strengthen as saying, “No Canadian law should include.” Would that wording be okay with you?
Senator Prosper: I’m fine with that.
Senator Pate: The reason I’m raising it is because the only other time I have seen it is when government tried to stop prisoners from trying to be able to sue when there were clear violations of rights.
The Deputy Chair: Okay. Are people in agreement?
Senator Audette: Before we go for a vote, Senator Pate, could you repeat the wording?
Senator Pate: Okay. Yes. My apologies for not providing this in advance.
I would just propose that we change the wording slightly to say, “No Canadian law should include a bar to compensation” and then the rest. The reason I gave was that the only other example I have seen is when there was an attempt in 2010 or 2011 or 2012 to bar prisoners from being able to sue for rights violations.
The Deputy Chair: Are we in agreement then, Senator Prosper?
Senator Prosper: Yes.
The Deputy Chair: Is the rest of the group in agreement? Thank you.
Looking at the fifth observation, do we have any comment or debate on this observation?
Agreed. We’re good. All right.
Thank you very much. Now I understand that we may have other observations. Is that indeed correct?
Senator Francis: I have a couple of minor clarification ones. This one is on terminology:
This committee notes that there is some confusion regarding the meaning of the terms “Indian status,” “band membership” and “citizenship,” as they were sometimes conflated during the study of Bill S-2. The committee wishes to clarify these are three distinct terms.
Firstly, Indian status is granted to an individual who is registered under the Indian Act. This registration is determined by the federal government through the Indian registrar, and confers certain rights or benefits.
In contrast, band membership is determined by each First Nation. The federal government, through the Indian registrar is responsible for adding and removing names from the membership lists of those that remain under section 11 of the Indian Act.
Under this system, individuals automatically become band members if they are registered as a status Indian, and are identified as being associated with that band.
In contrast, those First Nations that have assumed control over their membership code under section 10 of the Indian Act can define and maintain their own membership lists based on their own criteria and values, which may differ from Indian status. As a result, some individuals who are members of their nations can have Indian status, but not have band membership and vice versa.
Lastly, citizenship is governed by the criteria set out by each First Nation with a self-government agreement.
That was the first one. The second one is on rights holders:
Additionally the committee notes that there is a lack of clarity over who are rights holders, especially for the purpose of federal consultation related to ongoing sex- and race-based discrimination under the Indian Act. The term broadly describes First Nations whose inherent collective rights are recognized and affirmed under section 35 of the Constitution. For example, Anishinaabe Nation, Dene Nation and Mi’kmaq Nation. This population is not limited to governments created through the Indian Act, for example, bands governed through a chief-in-council or its members. Over 150 years of systemic discrimination have resulted in many individuals and families being disconnected. The committee heard that the federal consultations that began over 40 years ago may have excluded many rights holders including those impacted by the second-generation cut-off and other long-standing inequities.
The individuals who have borne the brunt of historic and ongoing discrimination — women, their children and their grandchildren — must be able to enjoy all their constitutionally protected rights and be included in any federal consultation engagement and collaborative processes that may impact their rights, not left out because of colonial rules imposed by the federal government that continue to marginalize them.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you, Senator Francis.
I will go back to your first observation. Is the committee in agreement with what Senator Francis has proposed?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Deputy Chair: Agreed.
On the second observation around rights holders, is the committee in agreement to include this observation as is?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Deputy Chair: Agreed. Thank you.
Are members in agreement with the observations in their totality, with all that we have heard?
Some Hon. Senators: Agreed.
Senator McNair: Can you please make a note that I abstain from these observations?
The Deputy Chair: Thank you. Yes, of course, senator.
Senator Pate: I apologize again for not thinking of this in advance. The report that was done by this committee, Make It Stop!, was such a powerful report. I would like to suggest, if it’s procedurally okay — I apologize that I didn’t get a chance to ask our procedural folks — to append that report to this as it goes back to the committee so that every MP is aware of that report. I’m not sure that every MP is aware of that report. So I would like to propose that or move a motion — I don’t know what I have to do. I would like to suggest that the report be appended to this report.
Senator Audette: I totally agree with your suggestion because with senatorial memory or corporate memory, many of us have been here since then, and many of you have been here for a while, I would say. For people in the other chamber, there are new members of Parliament. There are also new senators who perhaps, in this context, are saying, “What is going on or why is it so emotional or polarizing.” But when we bring the history and the official Senate history through reports like this, I think people will understand the role and how we manage and what we did. Good point. Thank you.
The Deputy Chair: We’re just confirming that we can indeed do that with this at this point. We’ll let you know, for sure. Yes and we can also refer to the report, and include the link so that it is there if you are agreement?
Senator Pate: We would need an observation to remind parliamentarians of this report, and maybe list the recommendations, would that be —
The Deputy Chair: We’re having a suggestion that many witnesses recommend that we implement the recommendations that were in that report. We can name the report and put the link because they did. Are you in agreement that we do that? We will check into the other piece as well, but at least we will have that in as an observation.
Senator McPhedran: It is just a procedural consideration that we put our good faith in the steering committee to tidy this up, so we know that there’s going to be another go at it.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you.
Senator Francis: I’m wondering if we can add something in the observations that notes what the bill, as it was originally written, does, whom it benefits, how we agree with it, and that it did not go far enough either. Just a little more clarification again.
The Deputy Chair: We can include that. Sarah will include that in the draft report.
Senator Francis: Thank you.
Senator Pate: I would like to suggest that might be a really good first observation that then leads to all the rest of the observations.
The Deputy Chair: Yes.
Are we agreed that the Subcommittee on Agenda and Procedure be empowered to approve the final version of the observations being appended to the report in both official languages, taking into consideration today’s discussion — all that you’ve told us — and with any necessary editorial, grammatical or translation changes as required? Are you in agreement?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you.
Is it agreed that the chair reports this bill, as amended, with observations to the Senate in both official languages?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Deputy Chair: Okay, we did it. Before I move the adjournment of this meeting, please allow me to inform you that we will reconvene on Tuesday, November 25, at 9 a.m. to consider the Voices of Indigenous Youth Leaders 2024 draft report that has been shared with all of you for your initial review. It was emailed to you, I believe, last Friday, so you will have that in your inboxes.
(The committee adjourned.)