My Anti-Colonial Work

My Anti-Colonial Work is in Two Areas.

The first area has to do with the long-time sex discrimination in the Indian Act.  Through court action I have a section 15 Charter challenge regarding Canada / Aboriginal Affairs' unstated paternity policy that assumes all situations where a father's signature is not on a child's birth certificate is non-Indian.  Through this Aboriginal Affairs' assumption, many Indigenous children are denied Indian status registration, First Nation band membership, treaty rights, and citizenship in their nations.

In Canada's process of eliminating their treaty responsibilities, mothers and babies − the most vulnerable − are being targeted.  This is in part why I continue this challenge even though I know that being a status Indian does not guarantee treaty rights, nor make a person Indigenous.  In Canada’s process of eliminating their treaty responsibilities through eliminating Indians mothers and babies should not be targeted.  I have been working on this for over 25 years.

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The second area has to do with Canada’s land claims and Canada’s self-government policies.  These two policies, and thus processes, are limited by a colonial understanding of what a treaty is and what treaty rights are.  These processes are not about treaty making; rather they are about Indigenous nations’ relinquishing or terminating their rights.

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While these two issues intersect in critical areas such as non-status people having less say in the land claims and self-government process, and in that they are both about Canada eliminating the treaty responsibilities that this very country was founded on, I in no way think that my court case will have a significant role in Indigenous rights being recognized as was discussed during the Treaty at Niagara and recognized and affirmed in section 35 of Canada’s Constitution.

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Lynn Gehl is an Algonquin Anishinaabe-kwe from the Ottawa River Valley.  She has a section 15 Charter challenge regarding the continued sex discrimination in The Indian Act, and is an outspoken critic of the Ontario Algonquin land claims and self-government process. She has three books: Anishinaabeg Stories: Featuring Petroglyphs, Petrographs, and Wampum Belts, The Truth that Wampum Tells: My Debwewin of the Algonquin Land Claims Process, and Mkadengwe: Sharing Canada's Colonial Process through Black Face Methodology.  You can reach her at lynngehl@gmail.com and see more of her work at www.lynngehl.com.

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