MEMBERSHIP ACT

Act

MEMBERSHIP ACT (PDF 227KB)

Regulations

None available at this time

Summary:

Note: The summary below is not a legal document. It should not be relied upon for accuracy and does not in any way replace, supercede, or supplement the Law.

This Act defines the criteria and process for enrolment (i.e., membership) under the Tsawwassen Final Agreement. The Act replaces the Membership Code and Procedures that were voted and approved by the membership in July 2007 and amended in July 2008. No substantive changes have been made in the Act from what is contained in the Code and Procedures with respect to the criteria for membership and enrolment; that is, (i) Tsawwassen ancestry, (ii) adoption, or (iii)  upon marriage to a Tsawwassen Member and the giving up of membership in another Band. The Act spells out how a person can apply for enrolment, how enrolment decisions can be appealed, and how enrolment can be removed or revoked, just in the same way as the Code did.

Under the existing Code, individuals can apply for both membership in the Tsawwassen First Nation and enrolment under the Final Agreement and there are two lists, the Membership List and an Enrolment Register. After Effective Date, membership and enrolment will mean the same thing and there will be only one list, the Tsawwassen Enrolment Register. Everyone who on Effective Day is on the existing Enrolment Register as entitled to be enrolled under the Tsawwassen Final Agreement will have their names entered on the new Tsawwassen Enrolment Register and will continue to be Tsawwassen Members.

For technical reasons, the current Code provides for three separate committees to make decisions about membership and enrolment: a Membership Committee, an Enrolment Committee and (after Effective Date) a Tsawwassen Enrolment Committee. On Effective Date, the Membership Committee will be dissolved because it will not apply any longer. The current Enrolment Committee will continue to function after the Effective Date until it has ruled on any enrolment matters that were commenced before Effective Date. After the Effective Date, the Executive Council will establish the Tsawwassen Enrolment Committee to receive and decide on applications for enrolment. The significance of this is that after the Effective Date, Tsawwassen Government is entirely responsible for the enrolment process.

Because this Act is an updated version of the existing Code, it removed sections that will not apply after the Effective Date, resulting in a more streamlined Act than the Code and Procedures are currently. Another update contained in the Act from the existing Code is that it assigns to the Executive Council the duties that before Effective Date were assigned to Chief and Council.

In summary, this Act is the same in substance, though different in form and appearance from the existing Code and Procedures. It also in now in line with the amendments made to the Tsawwassen Constitution, which were approved by the membership on February 3, 2009.