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.