August 27, 1973 - Jeannette Lavell & Yvonne Bedard - a podcast by Stephen Hammond

When Indian women marry non-Indians, they lose band rights, Supreme Court rules. Jeannette Lavell and Yvonne Bedard were both deprived of their Indian status when they married non-Indian men. The Indian Act of Canada allowed their bands to remove them from band registries and block their rights to land or property on their own reserves where they lived. Both women took separate legal action, but on August 27, 1973, the Supreme Court of Canada upheld the decision, five to four. The Canadian Bill of Rights, the court ruled, did not protect the women in these circumstances. In 1977, knowing Canadian courts would not restore the status to Indian women Sandra Lovelace Nicholas took her case to the United Nations Human Rights Commission which ruled in her favour in 1981. After the Charter of Rights and Freedoms became part of Canada’s constitution a year later, and after further years of lobbying and negotiations, the parliament of Canada repealed section 12 of the Indian Act in 1985 and reinstated the rights of First Nations women and their children.

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