Alberta First Nations challenge women's status change

Two Alberta First Nations are continuing their drawn-out legal battle on Wednesday in an Edmonton federal court as they launch a new lawsuit challenging a controversial change to the Indian Act.

The Sawridge First Nation and the Tsuu T'ina First Nation say Bill C-31, passed more than 20 years ago, violates the constitution and age-old treaties.

For years, the Indian Act stripped thousands of native women of their Indian status along with its rights and benefits when they married non-native men.

Bill C-31, restored status to those women in 1985. But a new Indian Act section stipulated that their children could only pass on Indian status if they married another status Indian.

Those offspring whowed non-native spouses have been denied that ability— an exclusion decried by some native groups as arbitrary and unjust.

The two bands challenging the 1985 amendments have been in court many times before with mixed results.

But many groups representing aboriginal women plan to intervene in the case and argue Bill C-31 should not be struck down.

'A right to leave a legacy'

Johanne Daniels is one aboriginal woman in Edmonton for whom the case has special significance. Her mother was one of the first group of women in the 1960s who brought the case to court to get their rights back.

"I asked her a long time agowhy she did it and she said, 'because I have a right to leave my daughters a legacy about their heritage and about their culture.'" Daniels told CBC News.

But Chief Rose Laboucan of the Driftpile First Nation says the amendment caused as many problems as it resolved. Shesaid the federal government should have left it up to First Nations to resolve the issue.

The bands launching the legal challenge have long argued Bill C-31 has led to a flood of women trying to reclaim their share of energy royalties and other benefits.

Most bands have had to deal with hundreds of applications to reinstate privileges with no support from Ottawa, Laboucan added.