Legal Unit’s “LEGISreform” Project: Keeping A Sharp Eye on Legislative Changes

We’re taking back our decision-making powers key to create a gender-equal society.

NWACs legal department has started a “LEGISreform” project to monitor and examine proposed legislation introduced in both chambers of Canada’s Parliament.

Our goal is to identify bills that impact Indigenous women, girls, and gender-diverse people far in advance of any proposed legislation becoming law. Our team will closely analyze the precise wording and the exact impacts a proposed Bill may have on Indigenous women, girls, and gender-diverse people. We will then research and analyze the issues that the Bill proposes to address.

Our mission is to proactively engage with members of parliament and committees be prepared to provide thorough and critical legal commentary on the proposed Bills.

Our legal team will outline the ways that the proposed Bills will impact our communities and explain the amendments that are needed to ensure proper protection for and representation of Indigenous women, girls, and gender-diverse people.

Prior to colonization, Indigenous women held leadership roles and actively participated in governing their communities. Colonizers forced their patriarchal ideologies into communities to perpetuate violence against Indigenous women, while attempting to silence and exclude them from participating in the political processes that affect their daily lives and survival. The Canadian government used its legislative powers to enact the Indian Act, which continues to control and discriminate against Indigenous women.

Through this important LEGISreform project, NWAC intends to take back those decision-making powers by amplifying the voices of Indigenous women, girls, gender-diverse people and the grassroots organizations that we represent in Canada’s legislative process.

Our LEGISreform project will directly impact the formation of Canadian laws while working towards creating a gender-equal society free of discrimination and that respects the self-determination, diversity, and uniqueness of all Indigenous nations, women, girls, and gender-diverse people.