Sandra Lovelace Nicholas

Last updated

The Honourable
Sandra Lovelace Nicholas
CM
Canadian Senator
from New Brunswick
In office
September 21, 2005 –January 31, 2023

Mary Sandra Lovelace Nicholas CM (born April 15, 1948) is a former Canadian senator representing New Brunswick. Sitting with the Progressive Senate Group, she was the first Indigenous woman appointed to the Senate. As an activist on behalf of First Nations women and children, she received international recognition in 1979 for bringing her case to the United Nations Human Rights Committee. In 1985 she succeeded in having Parliament revoke a discriminatory section of the Indian Act , which had caused women marrying non-Aboriginals to lose status and also deprived their children of status but did not treat men the same who married non-Aboriginal women.

Contents

Early life and education

Mary Sandra Nicholas was born a Maliseet in the Tobique First Nation. She studied at St. Thomas University and also obtained a degree in residential construction from the Northern Technical College in Maine, while living in the United States. As a young woman, she became an activist for aboriginal rights and has also worked as a carpenter.

Career

The Native women's groups, Indian Rights for Indian Women and National Native Women's Association, had been involved in trying to right the inequity of provisions under the Indian Act that deprived First Nations women and their children from status by marriage to a non-Aboriginal. Men who married non-status women did not suffer the same loss of status. In 1974, the Supreme Court of Canada upheld the law. Changes to the law were opposed by some male-dominated First Nations.

After being divorced from a non-Aboriginal man and returning to the Tobique reserve, Lovelace Nicholas found she and her children had lost their status as First Nations people, depriving them of rights to housing, education, and healthcare for a decade. In July 1977 she joined with other women on a 100-mile walk to Ottawa to bring attention to the issue.

Lovelace Nicholas became known internationally as an activist when, in 1979, she petitioned the United Nations over the treatment of aboriginal women and children in Canada by the government, in the case known as Sandra Lovelace v. Canada (1977–1981). Among the policies she criticized was revoking the status of a First Nations woman if she married a non-aboriginal man, and denying status to their children. As noted, this had numerous effect, including denying such women equal access to reserve land. It imposed a patriarchal model of identity, depriving married women of their independent rights and status. In addition, as many of the First Nations had matrilineal systems, in which children belonged to the mother's people, the law deprived the children of such marriages of their traditional First Nations identity.

In 1985, Lovelace Nicholas was finally successful in her campaign to have the law changed. Parliament passed an amendment to have a 116-year-old section of the Indian Act removed that revoked an aboriginal woman's Indian status if she married a non-Aboriginal man. This protected the status of First Nations women and their children, and was important in preserving the culture of descendants who identified as Aboriginal.

In 2005 Lovelace Nicholas was the first Aboriginal woman appointed to the Senate, where she sat as a Liberal.

On January 29, 2014, Liberal Party leader Justin Trudeau announced all Liberal Senators, including Lovelace Nicholas, were removed from the Liberal caucus, and would continue sitting as Independents. [1] The Senators refer to themselves as the Senate Liberal Caucus even though they are no longer members of the parliamentary Liberal caucus. [2]

In April 2018 the Feminist Alliance for International Action recognized Sandra as a member of the Indigenous Famous Six. Other members are Jeannette Corbiere-Lavell, Yvonne Bedard, Sharon McIvor, Lynn Gehl, and Senator Lillian Eva Dyck. [3]

With the Senate Liberal Caucus facing losing official parliamentary caucus status in 2020 with a third of its caucus facing mandatory retirements on their turning age 75, Senator Joseph Day announced that the Senate Liberal Caucus had been dissolved and a new Progressive Senate Group formed in its wake, [4] [5] with the entire membership joining the new group, including this senator. [4]

On January 31, 2023, Lovelace Nicholas retired from the Senate. [6]

Marriage and family

In 1970 Lovelace married Bennie Lovelace, a non-Aboriginal, and had one child with him. After they divorced, she moved back to her reserve but found that she and her children were deprived of status rights because of her marriage. This affected her family's housing, health, and education for her children. It took her nearly a decade to reclaim her First Nations status, leading to her work as an activist on this and related issues for women and children's rights.

Legacy and honors

Related Research Articles

<i>Indian Act</i> 1876 Canadian act of Parliament

The Indian Act is a Canadian Act of Parliament that concerns registered Indians, their bands, and the system of Indian reserves. First passed in 1876 and still in force with amendments, it is the primary document that defines how the Government of Canada interacts with the 614 First Nation bands in Canada and their members. Throughout its long history, the act has been a subject of controversy and has been interpreted in different ways by both Indigenous Canadians and non-Indigenous Canadians. The legislation has been amended many times, including "over five major changes" made in 2002.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wolastoqiyik</span> Indigenous people of Canada and the USA

The Wolastoqiyik, also Wəlastəkwewiyik, Malecite or Maliseet are an Algonquian-speaking First Nation of the Wabanaki Confederacy. They are the Indigenous people of the Wolastoq valley and its tributaries. Their territory extends across the current borders of New Brunswick and Quebec in Canada, and parts of Maine in the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dennis Dawson</span> Canadian politician

Dennis Dawson is a Canadian politician and administrator. Dawson is a retired Canadian Senator and former Member of Parliament (MP) in the House of Commons. He was first elected as an MP in 1977 at the age 27, and was appointed to the Upper Chamber by Prime Minister Paul Martin in 2005.

Terry M. Mercer is a former Canadian Senator who represented Nova Scotia from 2003 to 2022.

Pierrette Ringuette, also formerly known as Pierrette Ringuette-Maltais, is a Canadian politician.

Lillian Eva Quan Dyck, is a retired Canadian senator from Saskatchewan. A member of the Cree Gordon First Nation in Saskatchewan, and a first generation Chinese Canadian, she is the first female First Nations senator and first Canadian-born senator of Chinese descent.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Percy Downe</span> Canadian politician

Percy E. Downe is a Canadian Senator and former political aide.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Viola Léger</span> Canadian actress and politician (1930–2023)

Viola Léger was an American-born Canadian actress and politician who served in the Senate of Canada from 2001 to 2005.

Mobina S. B. Jaffer is a former Canadian Senator representing British Columbia. Jaffer was the first Muslim to be appointed to the upper house as well as being the first senator who was born in Africa, and the first of South Asian descent. She retired on August 20, 2024 upon reaching the mandatory retirement age of 75.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jane Cordy</span> Canadian senator (born 1950)

Jane Marie Cordy is a Canadian Senator representing Nova Scotia and former teacher and administrator. As of 2024, she was the longest-serving member of the Senate.

Tobique First Nation is one of six Wolastoqiyik or Maliseet Nation reserves in New Brunswick, Canada.

Jean Lynn Beyak is a retired Canadian politician who represented Ontario in the Senate of Canada from January 25, 2013 to January 25, 2021. Initially appointed to the Senate as a Conservative on the advice of Stephen Harper, she sat as a non-affiliated (independent) senator after being removed from the Conservative caucus in 2017. Beyak was suspended from the Senate twice; a first time for posting letters to her website that were considered to be offensive to First Nations peoples, and a second time for failing to comply with mandated anti-racism training. Beyak announced her retirement from the Senate, effective immediately, on January 25, 2021.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jody Wilson-Raybould</span> Canadian politician

Jody Wilson-Raybould, also known by her initials JWR and by her Kwak’wala name Puglaas, is a Canadian lawyer, author, and former politician who served as the member of Parliament (MP) for the British Columbia (BC) riding of Vancouver Granville from 2015 to 2021. She was initially elected as a member of the Liberal Party – serving as justice minister and attorney general from 2015 to 2019, and briefly as veterans minister and associate national defence minister in 2019 – until she resigned in response to statements from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau during the SNC-Lavalin affair. After she was expelled from the Liberal caucus, she continued to sit in Parliament as an independent and was reelected in 2019, but did not run in 2021. Before entering federal politics, she was a BC provincial Crown prosecutor, a treaty commissioner and regional chief of the BC Assembly of First Nations.

Jeannette Corbiere Lavell is a Canadian and Anishinaabe community worker who focused on women's and children's rights. In 2018, she was honoured as a member of the Order of Canada.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mary Two-Axe Earley</span> Mohawk and Oneida womens rights activist

Mary Two-Axe Earley was a Mohawk and Oneida women's rights activist from the reserve of Kahnawake in Quebec, Canada. After losing her legal Indian status due to marrying a non-status man, Two-Axe Earley advocated for changes to the Indian Act, which had promoted gender discrimination and stripped First Nations women of the right to participate in the political and cultural life of their home reserves.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michèle Audette</span> Canadian politician and activist

Michèle Taïna Audette is a Canadian politician and activist. She served as president of Femmes autochtones du Québec from 1998 to 2004 and again from 2010 to 2012. She was also the president of Native Women's Association of Canada from 2012 to 2014. From 2004 through 2008, she served as Associate Deputy Minister at the Ministry of Relations with Citizens and Immigration of the Quebec government, where she was in charge of the Secretariat for Women.

Renée Dupuis is a Canadian lawyer and a retired independent member of the Senate of Canada. Dupuis specialized in Canadian administrative law, Human rights law, and Canadian Indigenous law. She was chosen for appointment to the Senate on November 2, 2016, by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

The Senate Liberal Caucus, also known as the Senate Liberals, was, from 2014 to 2019, a parliamentary grouping in the Senate of Canada made up of independent senators who were individually members of the Liberal Party of Canada and were appointed on the advice of previous Liberal prime ministers. The caucus was not formally affiliated to or recognized by the Liberal Party.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Progressive Senate Group</span> Parliamentary group in the Senate of Canada

The Progressive Senate Group is a parliamentary group in the Senate of Canada. It was formed on November 14, 2019, out of the now-defunct Senate Liberal Caucus. It is currently led by Pierre Dalphond.

The Indigenous Famous Six was created by The Feminist Alliance for International Action for the purpose of advocating for Indigenous women's rights. This collective action by six Indigenous women is similar to the collective effort taken by the "Famous Five" that gained Canadian women the right to vote. Collectively the Indigenous Famous Six were active in challenging the sex discrimination in the Indian Act in Canada during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

References

  1. ↑ "Justin Trudeau removes senators from Liberal caucus | CBC News".
  2. ↑ "Trudeau's expulsion catches Liberal senators by surprise". Globe and Mail. 29 January 2014. Retrieved 29 January 2014.
  3. ↑ "'Famous Six' to be celebrated for work on '6(1)a All the Way'".
  4. 1 2 Tasker, John Paul (J.P.) (14 November 2019). "There's another new faction in the Senate: the Progressive Senate Group". CBC News Online. Retrieved 14 November 2019.
  5. ↑ "One-time Liberal senators rename themselves as Progressive Senate Group". CTV News. The Canadian Press. 14 November 2019. Retrieved 14 November 2019.
  6. ↑ "https://twitter.com/BrianFrancisPEI/status/1620563874159431680". Twitter. Retrieved 1 February 2023.{{cite web}}: External link in |title= (help)
  7. ↑ "Governor General Awards in Commemoration of the Persons Case - Status of Women Canada". cfc-swc.gc.ca. Retrieved 21 November 2022.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.