My Ancestor Was Songhees. Why Don't I Have Status? — Part 2

 My Ancestor Was Songhees. Why Don't I Have Status? — Part 2

If you read my last post, you may have wondered what the “second-generation cut-off” has to do with my family.

The answer is: not much.

Canada has changed its citizenship laws through Bill C-3. The old first-generation limit for citizenship by descent has been removed in certain circumstances. People born abroad in the second generation or later can now be Canadian in situations where they previously would not have been. For future generations, there is a substantial-connection requirement: the Canadian parent born abroad generally needs to have spent at least three years in Canada before the child's birth.

That's a significant change.

And if you are one of the people affected by the old citizenship rules, I understand why this matters enormously.

But here's why I am bringing up my own family history.

My great-great-grandmother was Songhees.

My family has documented this history.

Yet today, we have no legal Indian status.

So when Canada talks about correcting generations of people who were excluded from citizenship because of old government rules, I can't help asking:

What about the generations of Indigenous families whose legal recognition was affected by another set of government laws?

These are not the same laws. They are not the same legal issues. And I am not saying they are.

But they raise the same enormous question:

Who gets to decide who belongs?

For someone who isn't personally affected, this can sound like complicated government paperwork.

But it isn't paperwork to the people whose identity, family history and relationship to their ancestors are sitting inside those laws.

My great-great-grandmother didn't get to choose the legislation that would govern her descendants.

And I don't know why she made every decision she made. I wasn't there. I don't want to invent a story for her.

What I do know is that generations later, the consequences are still with my family.

So while Canada is correcting one historical citizenship problem, I think we also need to ask a much harder question:

What happens to the families who were left outside the legal definition of their own Indigenous identity?

Because changing the law for one generation doesn't automatically repair what happened to another.

And unless you are one of the families affected, you may never have a reason to think about it.

That's exactly why I'm writing about it.

Not because I have all the answers.

Because I think we need to start asking the questions.

10 Reflective questions

1. If Canada can change citizenship laws to correct injustices affecting descendants of Canadians, what does justice look like for Indigenous families whose legal status was affected by Canadian law?

2. Who gets to decide whether a person belongs — the government, a birth certificate, a status card, ancestry, or the nation of their ancestors?

3. What happens when a government-created definition of identity is passed down through generations and eventually separates descendants from legal recognition of their own heritage?

4. Can a law erase someone's legal status without erasing their family's actual history?

5. If you are a tourist visiting Canada, do you know whose territories you are actually standing on?

6. How would you feel if your great-grandmother belonged to a nation, your family could document that connection, but the government later told your descendants they no longer legally belonged?

7. Why do we find it important to correct historical injustices when they affect some Canadians, but struggle to understand the consequences when they affect Indigenous families?

8. What does reconciliation mean if generations of families still live with the consequences of laws created long before they were born?

9. When politicians talk about citizenship, immigration and belonging, whose definition of belonging are they using — and whose history is missing from the conversation?

10. If Canada is willing to reconsider laws that separated people from Canadian citizenship, are we willing to ask what other government-created divisions still need to be reconsidered?

#Songhees #IndigenousStatus #IndianAct #LostCanadians #Citizenship #IndigenousRights #Reconciliation #CanadianHistory #WhoGetsToBelong #KnowTheHistory