The Gradual Enfranchisement Act Attacks Tribal Self-Government

Minister of Public Works Hector Langevin introduced the bill that would become Canada's first major piece of legislation relating to Indians, the Gradual Enfranchisement Act. This Act clearly built on the Gradual Civilization Act, the 1857 legislation of the United Province of Canada. The legislation continued to offer any Indian man who passed a morals test the opportunity to "migrate" from an Indian community into Canada with his family and fifty acres of land, give up his Indian identity, and enter into mainstream society. Unlike the Gradual Civilization Act, however, the Gradual Enfranchisement Act was a direct assault on tribal self-government.

--Peter H. Russell, Canada's Odyssey: A Country Based on Incomplete Conquests (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2017), 188.