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Bill to assist First Nations Women during divorce delayed by the Olympics
In most of Canada, in the event of the breakdown of the marriage there are laws governing matrimonial property that prevent one spouse form ending up on the streets. Similar laws don’t apply on First Nations reserves, where they have their own laws to govern divorce, which unfortunately are seriously lacking any mention of the fair division of matrimonial property. The Indian Act is what governs First Nations, not regular family provincial or federal laws. This fact leaves many First Nations women struggling or even homeless in the event of a divorce.
Because the reservations are typically such a tightly-knit community, many women who are faced with divorce or the breakdown of their marriage because of abuse, have to leave the entire reserve – and their families and friends – to get themselves into a stable situation. Otherwise they find themselves on the streets, in shelters or fighting for custody rights with little help or support from the law.
The Ministry of Indian Affairs had put forth a bill, Bill C-8, that would incorporate matrimonial property division for First Nations people living on reservations.
So far, the bill has been both positively and negatively received by the First Nations community, with a few mentioning the statistics of First Nations women being left to fend for themselves is exaggerated. However in Canada, Native women are five times more likely to die as a result of violence and if the amount of missing and murdered First Nations women were relatively compared with the rest of the population, it would total 9,000 or so missing and murdered non-First Nations women since 2000 alone.
Bill C-8 was supposed to be presented in Parliament in January, but the proroguing of Parliament has delayed the bill until after the Olympics when Parliament resumes.
