Ottawa has tried to abolish the Indian Act before, and every attempt has failed.
In 1969, Indian Affairs Minister Jean Chrétien went furthest. His White Paper proposed scrapping the act, ending the separate legal status of Indians and handing control of reserve land to First Nations people.
First Nations leaders denounced the plan as assimilation imposed from Ottawa, and the government dropped it. Later governments tried narrower rewrites in 1996 and 2002. Both died.
Yet on Oct. 26 in Ottawa, Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew held up his own status card for the cameras. He noted the card says he is “an Indian, within the meaning of the Indian Act.” “I think it’s time to abolish the
Indian Act,” he said, adding that the work “needs to be done with First Nations people and First Nations governments.” Ironically, that same card gives his call for abolition a credibility that no other first minister can claim.
The messenger matters. Coming from a First Nations premier, the call disarms the old charge that outsiders cooked up abolition as a scheme. Prime Minister Mark Carney called the act “racist and anachronistic” and said he was “very open” to abolishing it.
The next day, Carney retreated. He said the review has “no fixed conclusion.” Within 24 hours, abolition had become a review. National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak of the Assembly of First Nations warned that the act protects First Nations people.
Woodhouse Nepinak has a point. The act is a cage, but it also holds up the roof. It defines who has status, gives band councils their legal existence, shields on-reserve property from seizure and anchors the tax exemption. Tear it out without replacements, and Ottawa leaves communities exposed.
The Frontier Centre for Public Policy’s 25 years of work on this problem point to three practical steps toward abolition.
First, set a hard date. Past efforts died in open-ended consultation. In 2020, Frontier researcher Joseph Quesnel proposed that Parliament write a sunset clause into the Indian Act so that the statute expires in 10 years. A deadline would give Ottawa and First Nations a reason to negotiate rather than delay.
Second, give First Nations ownership of their own land. Under the Indian Act, the Crown generally holds legal title to reserve land. Section 89 protects on-reserve property from seizure by outside creditors, but also restricts its use as collateral, making it harder for First Nations people to unlock its value and obtain capital. Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto called wealth that people possess but cannot borrow against “dead capital.”
Frontier has long backed a First Nations Property Ownership Act, set out in the 2010 book Beyond the Indian Act by Tom Flanagan, Christopher Alcantara and André Le Dressay. Ottawa would transfer underlying title to each First Nation, which would then decide whether to hold the land in common or let members own it outright.
Third, build the new floor before tearing out the old one. Quesnel would have Parliament pass interim rules on the tax exemption, membership and elections. A First Nation without its own replacement agreement with Ottawa would live under those rules until it has one. No community would wake up in a legal vacuum. The national chief would have her answer.
It’s time to favour true autonomy and end paternalism.
The work leading to abolition need not start from scratch. Many First Nations have already moved at least one area of governance, such as land management, out of the Indian Act through laws passed since 1999. The off-ramps exist. The deadline does not.
Kinew held up a card that calls him an Indian under legislation from 1876. If Ottawa means it, the card needs an expiry date.
Dr. Marco Navarro-Genie is vice-president of research and policy at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy. Marco is the author of three books, including the 2023 release Canada’s COVID: The Story of a Pandemic Moral Panic, co-authored with Barry Cooper.
This Op-Ed was written for the Winnipeg Sun