Looking Beyond the Indian Act

By Bob Joseph

This post is part of the Indian Act 150 series.

This year, 2026, marks 150 years of the Consolidated Indian Act of 1876. This serves as a timely opportunity to discuss the dismantling of this destructive and restrictive piece of legislation. The Indian Act has constrained and controlled the lives of Status Indians for generations, and reconciliation will be hampered until the Indian Act is no longer intact.

My recent book, 21 Things™ You Need to Know About Indigenous Self-Government, invites Canadians to join the conversation about dismantling the Indian Act and has offered me the opportunity to have these important discussions with readers across the country. During these conversations, a question I have frequently been asked was: “So what comes next? What is your vision of Canada without the Indian Act?”

My answer is that a return to Indigenous self-government is vital and necessary. I say “return” because Indigenous Peoples have been self-governing since time immemorial. In fact, Indigenous self-governance is already happening and is a way for Indigenous Nations to regain their agency from the historical injustices of the Indian Act.

In order to best understand the lasting effects of the Indian Act and the necessity of the move towards self-government, I think it’s important to first have a quick historical overview.

The Royal Proclamation of 1763

In 1763, King George III issued the Royal Proclamation, which established the boundaries of the British colony and formalized the treaty-making processes outside of the colony:

It is just and reasonable and essential to our Interest, and the Security of our Colonies, that the several Nations or Tribes of Indians with whom We are connected, and who live under our Protection, should not be molested or disturbed in the Possession of such parts of our Dominions and Territories as not having been ceded to or purchased by Us, are reserved to them, or any of them, as their Hunting Grounds…any Lands whatever, which, not having been ceded to or purchased by Us as aforesaid, are reserved to the said Indians, or any of them…

This section of the Royal Proclamation is significant because it acknowledges Indigenous Peoples as “Nations” or “Tribes of Indians” and recognizes them as the owners of the lands the British colony occupied. This was the King’s way of securing military and economic alliances with Indigenous Peoples. Indigenous Peoples were viewed as essential trading and military partners for England, which helped England reduce their dependency on France, Spain, and Russia, with whom they were competing. The Royal Proclamation also stated that no settlement could be established outside of those boundaries before the Crown secured the lands by negotiating treaties with Indigenous Peoples.

When the traditional chiefs or leaders negotiated historic treaties with the Crown, they realized that their formerly self-sustaining, self-governing world was changing. They negotiated certain provisions and treaty articles in order to ensure the survival and continuation of their people, including education, economic assistance, health care, livestock, agriculture tools, and agricultural training.

These historic treaties were made on a nation-to-nation basis and were negotiated with Indigenous hereditary or traditional leaders. The traditional governance structures of many nations were part of a productive and highly evolved society pre-contact, and many lost the traditions of these structures throughout Canada’s history, including the undermining of women and elders in leadership roles. Some of you may be thinking, why have hereditary chiefs? From my perspective, the British have a hereditary chief. His name is King Charles.

Confederation and the Consolidated Indian Act of 1876

Things changed at the time of Confederation with the passage of the British North America Act in 1867. Canada abandoned the principles within the Royal Proclamation, which caused a fundamental shift from negotiating with Indigenous Peoples on a nation-to-nation level, to viewing them as “savages,” incapable of governing themselves or raising their own children. These Indigenous forms of governance were – and are often still – downplayed as “primitive” and “backwards.”

The Consolidated Indian Act of 1876 brought on a new system of governance based on an electoral type of political system with elected chiefs and councils. Canada desired a more recognizable way for Indigenous communities to communicate with the government and represent their respective nations. This policy set out to eradicate the concept of hereditary chiefs, something Westernized democracy was not familiar with, despite the fact that many colonial powers were governed by a similar system of hereditary monarchs and families.

Band councils were designed primarily to look after healthcare, housing, and education on reserve lands. Although elected chief and council members are elected by their people on reserve, they are actually accountable to the Department of Indian Affairs. The elected chief and council only have jurisdiction within the reserve land borders and must go through an electoral process every two years. Indigenous communities like these are not considered self-governing because they are operating within a colonial system that was designed to assimilate them into the societal mainstream.

Present Day

Things changed once again with the Constitution Act in 1982, with the addition of section 35, which recognizes and affirms existing treaty and Indigenous rights. Despite the fact that these rights are now constitutionally protected, the Indian Act still continues to exist with many more restrictions than benefits.

The system of elected chief and council imposed by the Indian Act has created issues and complications, especially in recent years, with the Coastal GasLink pipeline project. Elected leadership along the pipeline were consulted, but the hereditary chiefs who govern their traditional territories were not consulted. This led to conflict and costly delays, and raised a lot of confusion and discussion surrounding elected versus hereditary leadership, as many communities have both. Another similar case, the Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion, had an original estimate of $5.4 billion in 2015, but met similar costly delays that increased the project cost to $34.2 billion at completion.

Returning to Indigenous self-governance and allowing Indigenous communities to freely choose how they govern themselves will not only eliminate a lot of that confusion, but it will also return power back to the communities who can best allocate funds and efforts to the issues that most need it. The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples is an international human rights instrument that offers a framework for reconciliation and lays the foundation for Indigenous self-government, self-determination, and self-reliance. While Canada has committed to this framework, the continued existence of the Indian Act contradicts the themes of the UN Declaration.

Canada, as a country, prides itself on being a champion of human rights around the globe. Section 2 of the Canadian Human Rights Act states “that all individuals should have an opportunity equal with other individuals to make for themselves the lives that they are able and wish to have and to have their needs accommodated, consistent with their duties and obligations as members of society, without being hindered in or prevented from doing so by discriminatory practices based on race, [etc.].”

However, the Indian Act contradicts this legislation and continues to detrimentally affect Status Indians to this day. Many Status Indians live in poor conditions on reserves and are unable to own the houses they live in or the land they live on, which is not subject to seizure under legal process. Despite the Constitution Act, 1982 and human rights legislation, the Indian Act’s existence continues to be a tool of assimilation and segregation.

Dismantling the Indian Act and letting Indigenous Nations choose how to govern themselves will benefit all Canadians, Indigenous and non-Indigenous alike. Taking action like this would allow us as a country to demonstrate our human rights objectives and improve our overall image as a country, not just abroad but at home too. Our identity is what we legislate it to be, so the continued existence of harmful legislation like the Indian Act here at home reduces our credibility as the international human rights champion and defender we believe ourselves to be.

I hope you’ll take the time to read 21 Things™ You Need to Know About Indigenous Self-Government, and continue to learn and engage with these topics and how they tie into human rights discussions around the globe. These conversations are vital to influence and shape our shared values as Canadians, both here and abroad. This important work begins here at home, and with your help, I believe that we can make a positive change, advance reconciliation, and improve the quality of life for all Canadians.

Bob Joseph, co-founder and president of Indigenous Corporate Training Inc. (ICT), has provided training on Indigenous relations since 1994. ICT has a diverse range of clients, including all levels of government, Fortune 500 companies, resource development companies, and small and medium-sized businesses. Bob is also the author of the national bestseller 21 Things™ You May Not Know About the Indian Act and its recent sequel, 21 Things™ You Need to Know About Indigenous Self-Government: A Conversation About Dismantling the Indian Act.

Bob is an Indigenous person, or more specifically, a Status Indian. He is an initiated member of the Hamatsa Society and has inherited a chief’s seat in the Gayaxala (Thunderbird) clan, the first clan of the Gwawa’enuxw one of the 18 tribes that make up the Kwakwaka’wakw. Bob is anticipating holding his inaugural potlatch to confirm his Chieftainship in the near future. His chief name is K’axwsumala’galis, which, loosely translated, means “whale who emerges itself from the water and presents itself to the world.”

(Please see above links for pronunciation tips)

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This series was produced within the project Historicizing Our Times: Histories of Migration and Climate in the Digital Space, which is supported in part by funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.