File

This file
documents Thérèse Casgrain's involvement in the movement to have Canada
recognize the legal equality of the country's Indigenous women. Although
she was nearly 80 years and at the end of her career, Thérèse Casgrain played
an active role in the fight against a law that discriminated against these
women. Under the terms of the Indian Act, First Nations women,
unlike the men, lost their Indian status and the right to live on reserves when
they married outside the community. Covering the period of April 15, 1975, to
June 9, 1980, the file is composed primarily of correspondence, along with
several press clippings and excerpts from parliamentary publications and
reports.

Several
documents in the file chronicle Thérèse Casgrain's legal and political efforts
to change the law as she approached the Canadian Human Rights Commission and
representatives of the federal government, including Marc Lalonde, Minister of
National Health and Welfare, Judd Buchanan, Minister of Indian Affairs and
Northern Development (now Department of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern
Affairs and Department of Indigenous Services) and Liberal Senator Joan B.
Neiman. The file also includes correspondence exchanged among Thérèse Casgrain,
Marguerite Bergeron-Tremblay, a feminist activist from the Lac-Saint-Jean
region, and Marthe Gill Dufour of the Quebec Native Women's Association in
Pointe-Bleu (Mashteuiatsh reserve).

Several
documents focus more specifically on the expulsion of activist Mary Two-Axe
Early instituted in June 1975 by the Kahnawake band council following her
marriage to a non-Indigenous man. Thank-you letters from a variety of sources
and letters of protest from members of First Nations communities, including one
from Clive Linklater, vice-president of the National Indian Brotherhood, and
several from Frank Taiotekane Horn of the Kahnawake reserve, reflect the impact
of Thérèse Casgrain's media activities. Among these activities was a June 9,
1975, appearance with Mary Two-Axe Early on CTV television's morning show Canada
AM, along with newspaper articles, including one written by Donna Gabeline
that was published in The Gazette on October 27, 1975, under
the title, "Unjust law angers Casgrain."

Finally,
the file documents the relationships that Thérèse Casgrain developed through
her involvement in various Indigenous and Métis groups, such as the
Association des Métis et Indiens hors réserves du Québec and the Comité de la
Fête abénakise (now known as the Abenaki Pow Wow of Odanak) in the county of
Yamaska. Documents sent by the Indian Rights for Indian Women organization
recount the Sandra Lovelace case. After losing her status due to her marriage
with a non-Indigenous man, this activist addressed the United Nations Human
Rights Committee in 1977 to argue that her rights were being violated under the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.