Angel Larkman, 2L, and her editor scrambled to get the story out and published in the Huffington Post Canada the day before it was closed. They were able to share Larkman’s personal story titled “It Took The Government 36 Years To Tell Me What I Already Knew: I Am A Status Indian”.
Larkman, a second-year Common Law student, felt compelled to share her experience to help others who might be in similar situations. Her grandmother “voluntarily” renounced her Indian status in 1952, thereby rendering all her future descendants born after that date ineligible for the Indian status. Larkman knew first-hand the strong possibility that too many were unaware of all the legal changes happening and that they might now be eligible to receive the Indian Status.
As shared by Larkman: “In December 1952, my grandmother, Laura Flood, became one of more than 11,000 Indians who were ‘voluntarily’ enfranchised through the racist legal framework of the time. These individuals received Canadian citizenship but had to renounce Indian status for themselves and all future descendants. When Bill C-31 and changes to the Indian Act abolished oppressive assimilation practices in 1985, my grandmother applied for her Indian status to be reinstated. She received status in 1986, followed by my auntie, uncles and their children.
“Unlike her siblings, my mother was born legally ‘not an Indian,’ after my grandmother had been enfranchised. When she regained status, it was under section 6(2) of the Indian Act, a category that does not let status pass to the next generation — my siblings and I. We spent our formative years without the rights and privileges we should have been afforded. In 1992, when I was in my 20s, I appealed the registrar’s decision in a bid to gain Indian status. Ultimately, I was turned down.”
In 2020, enrolled in the Common Law Program by then, Larkman received an email that would change everything.
A lawyer had received a decision on a case he had before the Quebec Superior Court regarding the “voluntary” enfranchisement of Margaret Hele. In that case, Hele’s enfranchisement was determined to be invalid because the Indian Act had not included single Indian women over the age of 21 when it drafted the voluntary enfranchisement legislation — only Indian men, their wives and minor children. She later found out that the lawyer had consulted Larkman’s case, refused back in 2015, and presented his case under a different perspective than what had been previously done.
Larkman’s decision to study law was fuelled by all the years spent navigating Canada’s legal system, fighting to gain Indian status. She and her grandmother worked on the case for decades. In 2015, their case was denied leave at the Supreme Court of Canada. Larkman then decided that if the law was not reflecting what real life was, she would find a way to change the laws and legislations.
At uOttawa’s Faculty of Law, Larkman found great support in Danielle Lussier, who was then Common Law’s Advisor, Indigenous Relations and Indigenous Learner Advocate and is now the Director, Indigenous and Community Relations.
Danielle’s open door and sound advice sustained Larkman since the beginning and throughout all of life’s events that had to be considered during a pandemic.
Larkman is currently working for the summer on her reserve, Matachewan First Nation in Ontario. She created her own position as a Public Legal Education Coordinator. Inspired by her own struggles to navigate the legal system and grateful of all the support and connections that allowed her to find out about the Hele case, she is working tirelessly to gather and disseminate information that will help her community and all members of Canada’s Indigenous Peoples avoid similar difficulties.
If asked five years ago about her Indian status, Larkman would have written a much different story, but, as her grandmother used to say, “Can’t stay stuck in the bad stuff”.
Thank you, Angel Larkman for your perseverance and resilience.
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Should you wish to read Angel Larkman’s story, It Took The Government 36 Years To Tell Me What I Already Knew: I Am A Status Indian”, it is still available on the Huffington Post’s website.
Other Ressources:
Hele c. Attorney General of Canada, 2020 QCCS 2406
Indian Act (R.S.C., 1985, c. I-5)
Remaining inequities related to registration and membership (rcaanc-cirnac.gc.ca)