Lynn Gehl gets explanation from Maryam Monsef on ‘gutted’ version of bill meant to fix gender-based inequities in the Indian Act – The Peterborough Examiner
August 24, 2017
A local Indigenous woman who says she’s unhappy with Minister of Status of Women Maryam Monsef got to speak with her in a closed-door meeting in Peterborough, on Wednesday.
Lynn Gehl is upset that Monsef, the MP for Peterborough-Kawartha, voted on a “gutted” version of Bill S-3 in June, which was meant to fix gender-based inequities in the Indian Act.
The unfairness involves who can be granted status, under the Indian Act, and who cannot. Some men, as compared to some women, can more easily pass their status onto their descendants.
Under a set of complicated rules, some Indigenous women who’ve married non-Indigenous men cannot pass on their status to their descendants – but the same rules don’t always apply to Indigenous men.
