Indian Act (R.S.C. 1985, c. I-5).

The present Act is a piece of basic legislation that governs in matters pertaining to Indian status, bands, and Indian reserves taking into consideration the gender dimensions. It has been suggested that the Indian Act provides ways of understanding native identity, organizing a conceptual framework that has shaped contemporary native life in ways that are now so familiar as to almost seem “natural”. The Indian Act is administered by Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC), formerly the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development (DIAND). The Indian Act is a part of a long history of assimilation policies that intended to terminate the cultural, social, economic, and political distinctiveness of Aboriginal peoples by absorbing them into mainstream Canadian life and values. The text consists of 122 sections dealing, inter alia, with the following aspects: descent of property, wills, management of reserves and surrendered and designated lands, loan to Indians, farms, election of chiefs and band councils, taxation, legal rights.