Tony Merchant, whose law group has been working on the lawsuit since July, filed the suit in Federal Court and in the province and plans to file similar suits in other provinces.
Photograph by: Don Healy, Leader-Post files
REGINA — About 45,000 Canadians are to receive Indian status as defined by the Indian Act.
And now, a Saskatchewan law firm has launched a class-action lawsuit because it believes those individuals are eligible to recover more than $2.7 billion in taxes and other amounts owed to First Nations people who, since 1985, have been wrongly denied Indian status.
Last month, Bill C-3 Gender Equity in Indian Registration Act received royal assent and the federal government can now move forward.
The bringing into force of Bill C-3 will ensure that eligible grandchildren of women who lost status as a result of marrying non-Indian men will become entitled to Indian status.
Tony Merchant, whose law group has been working on the lawsuit since July, filed the suit in Federal Court and in the province and plans to file similar suits in other provinces.
He believes that the $2.7-billion figure is fairly accurate based on a number of factors.
"First, we took the people, with whom we spoke, the taxes that they paid that they shouldn't have paid and we averaged the taxes," said Merchant. "I spoke with someone (Tuesday) and in my mind, they should not have paid $65,000 over time that they should not have paid so we averaged the issue of taxes and in addition, people are entitled to . . . certain medical expenses paid that non-First Nations don't get and added that in and added in our estimate for higher education."
He then added the $5 treaty annuity payment every First Nation receives annually from the federal government.
Merchant explained that the tax amounts are based over 26 years and includes income tax, provincial sales tax and fuel tax. According to the Indian Act, a person entitled to be registered as a status Indian is exempt from paying income tax on income earned on reserve. A person with Indian status, currently, does not pay taxes for purchases made on reserve, which include tobacco and fuel.
"We're confident that this is at least $2.7 billion," said Merchant. "In class actions you can have an aggregated claim and you aggregate based on the advice of experts."
"In 1983, (Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau's) government brought in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms," said Merchant. "The sections that affected this, came in 1985, so the government looked and knew they were discriminating against women. If an Indian man married an non-Indian woman, their children still continued to be full-status Indians, but if an Indian woman married a non-Indian man, she lost her status and her children lost their status."
In 1985, the federal government introduced Bill C-31, which gave women — who lost their status by marrying a non-status person — back their Indian status and that of their children.
"(The federal government) didn't give back the same things that applied to men," said Merchant.
The grandchildren of Indian men who married a non-status woman were entitled to be registered as status Indians, but grandchildren of Indian women who married a non-status man were not entitled to be registered as status Indians.
The claim also states that sex discrimination continues to exist even with the Bill C-3 amendment.
The statement of claim contains information that has not yet been proven in court.
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