Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew Calls for Canada to Abolish the Indian Act

Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew says Canada should abolish the Indian Act, and that the work must be done with First Nations.

Kinew, who is from Onigaming First Nation and is the first First Nations person elected premier of a Canadian province, said he raised it Monday in Ottawa, during a closed-door meeting between Prime Minister Mark Carney, most premiers and chiefs from the Assembly of First Nations. It was the first such gathering since the 2005 Kelowna Accord talks, The Canadian Press reported.

Speaking to reporters, Kinew held up his status card, which he said identifies him as an "Indian" within the meaning of the Indian Act.

"I'm not sure if that lines up with your vision of Canada, that we still have a race-based form of identification in this country, but this is a reality," he said.

"I think it's time to abolish the Indian Act, get rid of the Indian Act, move past the Indian Act, and it needs to be done with First Nations people and First Nations governments, of course."

He said it is "long overdue" that Canada have a relationship with Indigenous peoples "that reflects who we are as Canadians today," and that he received "an open-minded reception in the room from some of my counterparts and colleagues."

Kinew has made the case before. Testifying to a House of Commons committee in 2013, he said, "I'm against the Indian Act," and argued, "The real issue is not whether or not to replace the Indian Act, but how to do it."

Passed in 1876, the Indian Act still governs Indian status, reserve lands and band governance, and it has been debated for generations. Views on replacing it differ across First Nations. In 1969, the government of Pierre Trudeau proposed abolishing the Act and Indian status in its White Paper. First Nations leaders rejected the plan, and it was withdrawn.