journal article

"Officers had greater responsibilities than servants. They were charger with the over-all functioning of the fur trade posts. They corresponded with each other, kept all post records, ordered trade goods and supplies, valued furs, supervised the men, and ensured that necessary jobs were performed. At the same time they enjoyed considerable prestige, had many special privileges and earned high salaries (or income from shares).

"In 2011, thirty-six-year-old Cindy Gladue, a Cree woman, bled to death in a hotel bathtub in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. On the night she died, Gladue had contracted for sexual exchange with Bradley Barton, a white man who worked as a trucker. In 2015, Barton was tried for the murder of Cindy Gladue.

"Canada has had a longstanding problem with both societal and institutional racism against Indigenous peoples, especially within the justice system. Numerous national inquiries, commissions, and investigations have all concluded that every level of the justice system has failed Indigenous peoples. More recent inquiries indicate that racism against Indigenous peoples is particularly problematic in police forces in Canada. Yet, despite the evidence, little has been done in Canada to act on the recommendations.

"From 1879 to 1883 the Métis of the Spring Creek drainage successfully established a Métis community, but the decimation of the buffalo herds and gradual control of the area by incoming non-Métis settlers precluded Métis economic, social, and political dominance in their new community. Socially, in the Euro-American mind, they were linked increasingly to their Indian relatives.

"Drawing from case law, parliamentary debates, and legislation, I will detail the shifting terrain and multiplicity of voices that have emerged in relation to Latter-day Saints and polygamy. I begin the article with a brief overview of the history of polygamy in the Saints’ belief system and its social control through law. I then situate the legal treatment of Latterday Saints in Canada in the broader context of the legal boundaries around religious minorities generally.

"This paper considers the coercive sterilization of Aboriginal women in both legislated and non-legislated form.[1] In Canada, there exists but one concise history of eugenics, and other works dealing with sterilization have rarely progressed beyond an examination of the legislation itself.[2] Nonetheless, studies have confirmed that Aboriginal women were disproportionately targeted by enacted legislation in the province of Alberta.[3] Sterilization measures were also implemented in the absence of formal legislation.

This comment considers the case of Sharon McIvor and her son Jacob Grismer ("McIvor"), attacking two aspects of the discrimination against women in the registration provisions of the Indian Act: (1) the long-standing rule that eligibility for Indian status descends only through the male line; and (2) the rule which takes status away from Indian women, but not Indian men, who marry non-Indians (the "marrying out" rule).

"Aboriginal women in Canada do not enjoy rights equal to those shared by other Canadians. Since 1869, colonialist and patriarchal federal laws-most notably the Indian Act-have fostered patriarchy in Aboriginal communities and subjected Aboriginal women to loss of Indian status and the benefits of band membership, eviction from reserve homes, and denial of an equal share of matrimonial property.

"This article explores the concept of citizenship in relation to certain Aboriginal women, whose membership in First Nations is subject to Canadian federal legislation and First Nations constitutions and membership codes. In the struggle for decolonization, Aboriginal peoples use the language of rights—rights to self-determination, and claims of fundamental human rights.

"This paper will begin with a review of the historical background to the issue of sex discrimination in the Indian Act and the positions of Aboriginal groups on how to resolve it. It will go on to examine section 6(2) of the Indian Act from the viewpoint of sex and race discrimination and of its potential impact on Indian communities. It will end with a discussion of the possible application of the Charter and the relevance of developing international human rights theory.