Major Notes:

• Sandra Lovelace Nicholas was an aboriginal activist who appealed to the United Nations to have a Canadian law changed.

• She married an American non-Indian, Bernie Lovelace, in 1970 and moved with him to California, USA.

• The fact that she married a non-Indian caused her name to be removed from the Indian Register in Canada.

• After the marriage failed a few years later, Lovelace Nicholas and her children returned to the Tobique Reserve.

• It was then she learned, being a female, she had lost the right to housing, education, and health care normally granted to an Indian.

• The Indian Act did not apply in the same way to males who, if they had married a non-Indian, would still retain their full status and benefits as an Indian.

• At that point Lovelace Nicholas joined activist groups that were trying to have the Act changed.

• This law had been upheld by the Canadian Supreme Court so, in 1979, Sandra Lovelace Nicholas appealed to the United Nations to consider the unfairness of this ruling.

• Two years later, after getting considerable information, the UN ruled that Canada acted in disregard of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

• Many male Indians were not happy with the UN ruling but Lovelace Nicholas continued to push for a change in the Act.

• Finally, in 1985, Canada changed the Indian Act so that female Indians would have the same rights accorded to males who marry non-Indians.

• Sandra Lovelace Nicholas was appointed to the Canadian Senate by Prime Minister Martin in 2005.