When rights don't apply

Amidst the furor over Kashechewan, another case of discrimination against First Nations people has drawn the U.N.'s notice...and this one is contained in a statute which is supposed to guarantee equality:

The United Nations Human Rights Committee is calling on Canada to act immediately to repeal section 67 of the Canadian Human Rights Act, a section that excludes some First Nations people from protection under the Act.

The Committee tabled its Concluding Observations on November 2, following the review of Canada's Fifth Periodic Report under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. In this document, the Committee raises several issues regarding Aboriginal rights in Canada, including the fact that section 67 allows discrimination as long as it can be justified under the Indian Act. The Committee goes on to say that it is concerned that the discriminatory effect of the Indian Act against Aboriginal women and their children in matters of reserve membership has still not been remedied, and that the issue of matrimonial real property on reserve lands has still not been properly addressed.

This only a few days after the Canadian Human Rights Commission released its own report, A Matter of Rights, asking Parliament to immediately repeal Section 67. Chief Commissioner Mary Gusella said at the time of the release, on October 26, 2005, that section 67 was a hole in the fabric of human rights in Canada that needed to be fixed and that this exclusionary provision of the Canadian Human Rights Act was nothing less than "a national and international embarrassment to Canada."

Fortunately, it seems that the movement to change the current Section 67 is already afoot...so it may not take much more public attention to get the change made. But the current text is just one more reminder of how the law has historically treated Canada's aboriginal people as something less than complete citizens...and how much further we have to go to try to undo the effects of that prejudice.