On a statutory appeal under the Indian Act, the court held that the Registrar erred in denying registration and band list entry to a claimant seeking relief from historical sex-based discrimination arising from an ancestor's marriage to a non-Indian man before 1951.
The court found palpable and overriding error in the Registrar's refusal to give independent weight to oral family history, in requiring corroboration from sparse official records, and in assessing pieces of evidence in isolation rather than cumulatively.
The court further held that the unknown-ancestor provision in s. 5(6) applied to an ancestor whose name on a baptismal record was effectively indecipherable and historically untraceable.
Drawing reasonable inferences in the claimant's favour from the totality of the historical and genealogical evidence, the court reversed the Registrar and ordered registration and addition to the Wiikwemkoong Band List.
