Lady Action tour group, Toronto Courthouse, May 19, 2019. Image by Hanifa Mamujee.
Mary Two-Axe Earley and The Right Honourable Edward Schreyer, Governor General's Awards, Ottawa, October 17, 1979. Image: Library and Archives Canada
The Lavell Case
Jeannette Corbiere Lavell
Jeannette Corbiere Lavell is an Ojibwe activist, educator, and community worker. She grew up on the Wikwemikong Reserve on Manitoulin Island and moved to Toronto after business college. In 1970, she married David Lavell, a white man. Shortly after her marriage, Lavell received a letter telling her that her Indian status had been revoked. Rather than accepting this, Lavell decided to fight back. She launched a lawsuit to appeal against the sexism of the Indian Act and regain her status.
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Section 12 (1)(b)
Introduced in 1876, the Indian Act is a set of colonial ordinances used by the government to control First Nations people. Section 12 (1)(b) of the Act stipulated that a Status-Indian woman would lose her status if she married a non-status man. The loss of Indian Status affected health care, education, and the right to live on a reserve. To Lavell, the biggest loss was community support.
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Canada v. Lavell
In 1970, Lavell filed a lawsuit against the federal government. She argued that the revocation of her status violated the 1960 Canadian Bill of Rights because it discriminated on the basis of sex. If a Status-Indian man married a non-status woman, he still retained his status. Lavell’s case was dismissed at the County Court level. She took it to the Federal Court of Appeal, who agreed that it was discrimination because the Indian Act treated First Nations men differently than First Nations women. But the Supreme Court overturned the case once again, arguing that the Indian Act trumped the Bill of Rights.
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Parliamentary Bill C-31
Although Lavell lost her case, by stepping forward she paved the way for others to continue the fight. The issue even caught the attention of the UN Human Rights Committee. In 1985, fifteen years after Lavell’s case began, Parliamentary Bill C-31 repealed Section 12(1)(b) of the Indian Act. Status women can keep their Indian Status after marriage. Mary Two-Axe Earley was the first woman to regain her status, at a ceremony in Toronto. Although Lavell and her children also regained their status, her grandchildren are still at risk to lose it.
Jeannette Corbiere Lavell and Dawn Memee Lavell-Harvard, “Until our hearts are on the ground” : Aboriginal mothering, oppression, resistance and rebirth. Toronto: Demeter Press, 2006.
