Profiles of Alberta Women
Jenny Margetts
Philomena Aulotte, Nellie Carlson, and Jenny Margetts in Gibbons, Alberta. Image taken from Disinherited Generations: Our Struggle to Reclaim Treaty Rights for First Nations Women and their Descendants by Nellie Carlson and Kathleen Steinhauer, as told to Linda Goyette. Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 2013. Used with permission.
Personal life
Jenny Margetts (neé Shirt) was born on June 14, 1936 to Felix and Louisa Shirt, residents of the Saddle Lake reserve in Alberta. One of ten children, Jenny spent her early years on the reserve with her family and attended Blue Quills Indian Residential School nearby.
At age sixteen, Jenny left Alberta to begin formal studies to become a nun, moving to a convent in Beaupré, Quebec. While in Quebec, Jenny pursued education in a variety of fields, including education, anthropology, and sociology, which she studied at Laval University in Quebec City. She also became fluent in French, her third language after Cree and English.1 Jenny planned to complete her studies and become a teacher, but had those plans turned upside down when she returned one summer to western Canada on holiday.
While back in Alberta, Jenny met Gordon Margetts, the owner of a mobile welding business. The two fell in love, and after some consideration Jenny decided to reconsider her future as a nun.2 Jenny and Gordon were married in 1960 and moved to Saskatchewan where Jenny attended business college. Although her marriage was a happy one, it came at a steep cost for Jenny. When she married Gordon, a non-Indigenous man, Jenny was stripped of her treaty rights and her membership in the Saddle Lake Cree Nation. This was the result of Section 12 (1) (b) of the Indian Act, which at that time explicitly revoked Indian status from any woman who married a person who was not Indian.
Despite losing her status, however, while in Saskatchewan Jenny worked to retain and reinforce her Aboriginal identity. She joined and found work with a First Nations and Métis women’s crafts co-operative, engaging it what would become one of many initiatives and organizations for the promotion, protection, and betterment of Indigenous women in Canada.3 In the 1960s Jenny and her family returned to Edmonton, where Jenny began her work as an activist and organizer in earnest.
Activism
Soon after returning to Edmonton, Jenny joined the Alberta Native Communications Society (ANCS) as an administrator, assisting the ANCS in its work producing radio programs that were broadcast across Alberta. While working with the ANCS Jenny came realize the extent of the plight of Canada’s Indigenous women. She said later “it was during my time there [the ANCS] that I discovered that native women were just going nowhere. They weren’t taken seriously. They were expected to be at home. They were never expected to run for council, they were never expected to be political; we come from a very strong, chauvinistic society.”4 Things at ANCS came to a head for Jenny after three years, when she was fired after challenging the business decisions of the men who ran the organization.
“It is the Native position that formal education is welcome and essential to the Native people’s desire to cope with the contemporary world and contribute to its development. However this education cannot be at the expense of our Native cultural heritage.”
Corinne George, “’If I Didn’t Do Something, My Spirit Would Die…’: grassroots Activism of Aboriginal Women in Calgary and Edmonton, 1951-1985,” Masters thesis, University of Calgary, 2007..
Undeterred, Jenny continued to pursue opportunities to fight the disparities she had seen and experienced. Around the start of the 1970s she joined the Voice of Alberta Native Women Society (VANWS), an auxiliary group to the Indian Association of Alberta (IAA) and the Métis Association of Alberta (MAA). While with the VANWS Jenny got involved in education for Aboriginal children, particularly Cree language and cultural education. It was during this time that Jenny organized the Awasis program, introducing it at Prince Charles Elementary School in Edmonton in 1973. The program, named for the Cree word for child, incorporated Indigenous content into the Alberta learning curriculum by the inclusion of instruction in Cree culture and traditions. The first of its kind in Canada, the program was soon expanded to higher grades, and today includes all elementary school grades in its scope.5
In addition to her work in education, Jenny also supported the VANWS by leading delegations to the legislature, writing a brief for the Worth Commission on Native Education in Alberta, and offering training in leadership to women in northern Alberta. In March of 1971 she participated in the First National Native Women’s Conference in Edmonton as part of the VANWS executive, and in 1974 as a VANWS delegate also attended the first annual assembly of the Native Women’s Association of Canada in Thunder Bay, Ontario. However, despite the good she was able to do with VANWS, Jenny was unhappy with the scope of the organization, particularly as it related to the status of Indigenous women in Canada and Section 12 (1) (b) of the Indian Act.
“[Speaking about quitting VANWS over inaction on the Lavell case] So after the initial conference they had a panel about the pros and cons for the Lavell case. Right after that conference I did a talk at the podium. I said ‘I quit the Voice of Alberta Native Women because it just won’t do these things. It’s a native women’s rights organization, but it’s not even trying to fulfill its mandate to work for native women’s rights. You don’t even know what women’s rights are. You’ve got to learn. I’m willing to learn and I’m getting out, but you haven’t heard the last of me.”
Nellie Carlson, and Kathleen Steinhauer, “A Tribute to Shirt Jenny Margetts,” in Disinherited Generations: Our Struggle to Reclaim Treaty Rights for First Nations Women and Their Descendants (Edmonton, AB: University of Alberta Press, 2013), 71-80.
In 1970, the plight of Aboriginal women who married non-status men was given national attention by what has become known as the Lavell case. In Ontario, an Anishinaabe woman named Jeannette Corbiere married David Lavell, a non-Indigenous man, and lost her Indian status, as per the Indian Act. Lavell filed a lawsuit claiming that her rights under the Canadian Bill of Rights were violated, as Section 12 (1)(b) was discriminatory based on sex. After being dismissed in the York County Court, the case went on to the Federal Court of Appeals, where the judge ruled in Lavell’s favour, and then the Supreme Court of Canada, where the Federal Court decision was overturned in 1973.
Jenny followed the Lavell case closely, recognizing it as an important moment in the battle for equal rights for Aboriginal women. It was while the case was ongoing that Jenny, alongside other Indigenous women in Alberta, including Nellie Carlson and Jenny’s sister Lillian Shirt, involved themselves in the formation of the Alberta Committee of Indian Rights for Indian Women (IRIW), a national organization that grew out of Equal Rights for Indian Women, an organization founded by Mary Two-Axe Early in the 1960s. In the aftermath of the Lavell case, Jenny took on the position of co-president of IRIW, and devoted the rest of her life to fighting for Indigenous women’s rights with the organization.
“By joining with the Attorney General against Jeannette Lavell, the several treaty and status organizations conceded to Jean Chretien and his boys the power to define (again) an Indian. Indians in this day and age have been conditioned to accept the government policy of ‘divide and conquer’ and have also accepted the government’s policy of fragmenting the native population and dividing Indian families.”
Jenny Margetts, “Indian Rights for Indian Women,” Branching Out, Dec. 1973, http://awmp.athabascau.ca/documents/Preview%20Issue%20December%201973.pdf.
In addition to co-president, Jenny acted as a spokesperson for IRIW alongside Mary Two-Axe. She organized and participated in many events, including workshops, conferences, panels, demonstrations, and talks, all aimed at informing about and bringing attention to the inequalities experienced by Canada’s Indigenous women. She also engaged in interviews and writing, appearing in various publications including The Edmonton Journal, The Native People, Chatelaine, and Branching Out. In the December 1973 issue of Branching Out, Canada’s first national feminist magazine, Jenny wrote a piece detailing the circumstances of the Lavell case, and outlining the need for and barriers to changes to the Indian Act. “We should have collectively fought this policy forced on the Indian people. Indian Affairs, I feel, have been so successful in their brainwashing job that some treaty Indians actually believe that the Indian Act is based on Indian culture. In light of their success, it is not difficult to understand why so many Indians cannot accept the fact that extending Indian rights to one segment of Indian society would have been a ‘victory’ for all native peoples. Our intention has been, was and is to increase the rights of the Indian people.”6
In the 1970s, through dialogue at workshops and conferences, IRIW developed a definite stance on what changes they wanted to see in the Indian Act. Although in 1978 the federal government began a review of the Indian Act and the place of Indigenous women, IRIW continued lobbying to ensure that the changes made would reflect the needs and reality of those affected. In 1978 the IRIW held their fifth annual conference in Edmonton, focusing on what specific revisions to the Indian Act would be most impactful. While the federal government’s proposed reforms would change the practice of removing treaty status from women who married a non-treaty man, Jenny and her fellow activists pushed for recognition of the need for any changes to be retroactive. Already, the treaty status of many women and their children had been revoked, something that IRIW argued must be remedied. Despite opposition from both the government and some other Indigenous groups in Canada, on June 28, 1985 the federal government passed Bill C-31, both amending the discriminatory section and retroactively restoring status to the 127,000 women and children who had lost their status, including Jenny.
Although their biggest battle had been won, Jenny continued on as co-president and spokesperson for IRIW for the rest of her life, continuing her lifelong resistance to assimilation, whether through legislation or education. In 1986 she met with Milt Pahl, then the Alberta Native Affairs Minister, with whom she had an “exchange of information” which included raising concerns about people in Metis colonies that feared applying for status. Although they were eligible to be reinstated, there were concerns that they would be asked to leave settlements due to lack of space.7 While Bill C-31 was an important first step, the battle for Jenny, IRIW, and the Indigenous women of Canada was far from over.
After a three-year battle with cancer, Jenny passed away on October 18, 1991. The Awasis program continues to this day, having grown to include children from kindergarten to grade 6. The program focuses on aboriginal cultures, spirituality, and beliefs, incorporating teaching from Elders as well as traditional ceremonies into curriculum. Additionally, the program incorporates daily instruction in Cree, and offers participation to children of any background. The program stands as an enduring testament to Jenny’s fight against assimilation.
In a tribute to Jenny’s life, her fellow activist Nellie Carlson recalled “Every time a school bus goes to the front of my house, I think of Jenny. The Awasis program, she started it . . . That’s the legacy she left all of us. She worked so hard as a leader with Indian Rights for Indian Women, too, even when she was ill. Even the medicine man said, ‘Take a break, Take a break.’ And she would say to me: ‘If I take a break, we will lose.’”8
Read more about Jenny Margetts
Footnotes
1 Nellie Carlson, Kathleen Steinhauer, and Linda Goyette, Disinherited Generations: Our Struggle to Reclaim Treaty Rights for First Nations Women and Their Descendants (Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 2013), 71.
2 Ibid.
3 Ibid., 72.
4 Ibid.
5 Ibid., 78.
6 Jenny Margetts, “Indian Rights for Indian Women,” Branching Out, December, 1973, 8-9, http://awmp.athabascau.ca/documents/Preview%20Issue%20December%201973.pdf
7 Jeanne Lepine, “Margetts Meet Milt Pahl,” Windspeaker Publication 4, no. 1, 1986, https://ammsa.com/publications/windspeaker/margetts-meet-milt-pahl.
8 Carlson, Steinhauer, and Goyette, Disinherited Generations, 78.
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