Legislative reform to reduce Indigenous women’s manufactured vulnerability

Recommendation 4: Implement independent civilian oversight of officials responsible for responding to and investigating violence against Indigenous women. Ensure that administrative, disciplinary, or criminal measures are available to hold such officials accountable when officers are found to have failed to act on reports of missing women or to have carried out biased or inadequate investigations of violence against Indigenous women.

Legislative reform to reduce Indigenous women’s manufactured vulnerability

Recommendation 5: Remove discrimination from the Indian Act by making women and men equal in the ability to pass on status, repair situations where discrimination against women has disadvantaged those claiming status through the mother’s line, and remove the two-parent rule for transmitting status and the 6(2) cutoff that withholds status from the children of many women who are unable or unwilling to provide the father’s name.

Legislative reform to reduce Indigenous women’s manufactured vulnerability

Recommendation 8: End the policing practice of street checks; reduce the number of bylaw infraction tickets issued by police in the DTES; prohibit police from carrying and using all lethal weapons; develop guidelines to facilitate greater use of police discretion not to lay charges especially for minor poverty-related offences; and end the counter-charging and criminalization of Indigenous women who defend themselves or their children.

Legislative reform to reduce Indigenous women’s manufactured vulnerability

Recommendation 10: Repeal laws that criminalize or increase harm for Indigenous women in the sex trade.

Guaranteed public services

Recommendation 28: Provide a safe and affordable home for every Indigenous woman on and off reserve. This housing must be with long-term security of tenure, independent of matrimonial or common-law status, and self-contained units of at least 400 square feet with bathrooms and kitchens. Housing must also consider specific needs such as mobility access, space for children and extended families, and ceremonial practices. Highest priority for social housing should be given to Indigenous women fleeing violence and Indigenous mothers at risk of child apprehension.

Recommendations to end Indigenous women’s displacement from land

Recommendation 37: All Canadian and Aboriginal governments must ensure that Indigenous women are engaged fully and have equitable access to decision-making on issues of governance, land, culture, language, housing, child care, income security, employment, education, health, and other areas impacting Indigenous women.

Recommendations to end Indigenous women’s displacement from land

Recommendation 38: Remove discrimination from the Indian Act by making women and men equal in the ability to pass on status, repair situations where discrimination against women has disadvantaged those claiming status through the mother’s line, and remove the two-parent rule for transmitting status and the 6(2) cutoff that withholds status from the children of many women who are unable or unwilling to provide the father’s name.

Recommendations to end Indigenous women’s displacement from land

Recommendation 39: Compensation for the disenfranchisement and lack of protections for women and their descendants as a result of the discriminatory Indian Act and matrimonial real property laws.

Recommendations to end Indigenous women’s displacement from land

On reserve

Recommendation 40: The federal government must guarantee:

1. Access to clean drinking water; food security based on a traditional diet; critical infrastructure including roads and sanitation systems; and essential health, education, child care, housing, transport, recreational, cultural, and emergency services on every reserve.
2. Safe, affordable, and livable housing for every woman on her reserve that is independent of her matrimonial status.
3. Affordable child care and licensed day care options on every reserve.
4. Complete complement of maternal and infant/child health services on reserve to enable women to remain closer to home to give birth.
5. Free public transportation between each town and city located along the entire length of Highway 16 and all other highways, with a number of safe homes and emergency phone booths along the length of all the highways.
6. Increase funding on all reserves for programs and services that strengthen traditional and cultural knowledge grounded in Indigenous laws, values, and practices.
7. Range of anti-violence services including preventive programs, crisis intervention, victim services, advocacy support, restorative justice circles, shelters, transitional housing, and second-stage housing on every reserve.
8. Cultural sensitivity training for all first responders such as police, healthcare professionals, and social workers who assist survivors of violence on reserve.

Recommendations to end Indigenous women’s displacement from land

On reserve

Recommendation 41: Implementation of overarching substantive federal legislation to protect the rights of women and children living on reserve in the interim until First Nations communities can develop their own laws to replace matrimonial real property laws. This legislation should include opt-out clauses.