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More than 700 members of the Innu First Nation of Essipit in Quebec have lost their Indian status following a federal decision that is now being challenged in court.
The names of 738 people — all descendants of Christine Kichera and Adelaïde Matshiragan — have been struck from the Indian Register by the federal Office of the Indian Registrar.
According to their lawyer, Audrey Mayrand, the two women who were Innu lived in the late 1700s and married non-Indigenous men. Under earlier provisions of the Indian Act, Indigenous women who married non-Indigenous men lost their status and could not pass it on to their children.
Their descendants only regained status after 2019, when amendments to the law sought to address long-standing gender-based discrimination.
But in 2024, descendants of the two women received registered letters informing them their status was under review and that they had 120 days to provide historical proof of their eligibility. A final decision issued Nov. 5, 2025, revoked the status of the two women and their descendants, effective immediately.
Facing eviction
Since then, Mayrand says some Essipit residents fear eviction or losing the ability to remain in the community — located in the Côte-Nord region, about 150 kilometres east of Saguenay, Que. — while others have put plans to build homes on hold.
She said people with hunting and fishing camps may lose their access, or people who have been living in their home for years will have to sell.
But even then, they would have to sell to people with status, meaning the buyer pool is small. That makes it impossible to get a return on their investments, she said.
The immediate status revocation also cut members off from the federal Non-Insured Health Benefits (NIHB) program. Mayrand noted that transitioning back to provincial insurance can take months, leaving those with chronic illnesses in a dangerous gap.
“I have a client who missed some of his treatments because of this,” she said. “This is really a fundamental issue of identity.”
Mayrand said the decision has left a cloud hanging over the community, raising questions about the descendants’ right to remain.
“There is a violation of the right to life, security, and liberty of the person,” she said, adding people are going to be evicted from their homes if nothing changes.
The Essipit Innu band council told Radio-Canada it does not intend to evict those affected and has given them three years to regularize their status.
Taking Ottawa to court
The affected descendants have filed a motion in Federal Court seeking to overturn the registrar’s decision and plan to formally contest the ruling in an effort to regain their status.
“In addition to all these very concrete impacts I was talking about, psychologically it’s very distressing,” said Mayrand. “It’s also very distressing on the community to have this doubt cast on its membership.”
At issue is the validity of a late-18th-century record cited as evidence of the women’s Innu identity. Radio-Canada reports the document, known as the Catalogue général de toute la nation montagnaise, was compiled by a missionary and lists members of the Innu community, including Kichera and Matshiragan.
As far as finding documentation proving lineage, that’s no easy task, Mayrand said, because of poor record-keeping, especially for Indigenous women “who were often very invisible.”
Setting the standard of proof too high is just going to perpetuate the issue, she added, because it will make it impossible for descendants today to prove their ancestors meet the criteria.
“It is quite difficult to go back in time and demonstrate all these links with historical documents. The process needs to be better adapted,” she said.
The Office of the Indian Registrar has not responded to Radio-Canada’s requests for comment.