Amy Swiffen: Reconstructing Section 141: Colonial Governance, Discretion, and the “Blackout Period” in Aboriginal Law

This talk draws on research examining Section 141 of the Indian Act (1927–1951), a little-known provision that made it an offence for Indigenous peoples to raise funds or hire lawyers to advance claims without government permission.

Presented as a measure of “protection,” the provision in practice placed all Indigenous legal advocacy under the discretionary control of Indian Affairs. Using archival research across federal departments and police records, the project reconstructs how Section 141 operated during what we call the “Blackout period” in Aboriginal law, a time when Indigenous legal advocacy was curtailed and largely erased from the colonial record.

We argue that Section 141 functioned less as a criminal prohibition than as an administrative mechanism that determined who could speak for Indigenous peoples and on what terms. Through correspondence, surveillance, and informal warnings rather than prosecutions, Indian Affairs used the law to suppress political organising while maintaining a paternalistic posture of care.

Case studies of leaders such as Frederick Loft, John Elliott, Albert Edward Thompson, and Jules Sioui show how discretion and fiduciary rhetoric were used to silence advocacy and define “legitimate” leadership. Section 141 reveals how colonial authority in the early twentieth century sustained itself through discretionary power and the appearance of protection, shedding light on an earlier administrative regime that shaped the context in which Aboriginal law would later be articulated within Canadian jurisprudence.