Matrimonial Real Property on Reserves

In 2003 I was a member of the Senate Human Rights committee which studied property rights for women on Aboriginal reserves. In a report entitled “A Hard Bed to Lie In”, the Senate Committee addressed the need for legislation to be drafted so that Aboriginal women would have access to the necessary resources to ensure that they could protect themselves and their families.

This Bill is the government’s proposal to close a legislative gap that currently exists between the Indian Act, which is the federal statute that oversees native reserves, and provincial statutes that govern matrimonial real property rights.