CEDAW/C/81/D/68/2014 14.3 The State party submits that the communication is moot, because the basis for the claim of gender-based discrimination no longer exists. Since the entry into force on 15 August 2019 of Bill S-3, all sex-based inequities have been removed from the Indian Act and all descendants of status Indian women who had lost status upon marrying non-Indian men became entitled to registration. Women who had lost Indian status, and their children who had previously obtained status under paragraph 6 (1) (c) of the Act, became entitled to be registered under new paragraph 6 (1) (a.1). Their children born prior to 17 April 1985, or from a marriage that occurred before that date, who had previously been entitled to be registered under paragraph 6 (1) (c.1), became entitled to be registered under new paragraph 6 (1) (a.3), and any of their descendants born prior to 17 April 1985, or from a marriage entered into prior to that date, also became entitled to be registered under new paragraph 6 (1) (a.3). 14.4 The State party submits that, on 11 March 2020, the Office of the Indian Registrar informed the author of his registration under new paragraph 6 (1) (a.3) of the Indian Act, which had been triggered by his grandmothe r’s adjusted registration under new paragraph 6 (1) (a.1). The author’s children also became entitled to registration. The differential treatment of children born prior to and after the amendments of 1985 was based entirely on the date of the adoption of a new legislative scheme governing entitlement to registration. Any differential treatment based on dates does not constitute discrimination. According to the State party, the provisions of the amended Indian Act no longer constitute gender-based discrimination, given that, under the amendments of 2019, great-grandchildren from a maternal line and those from a paternal line, with the same birth and marriage dates, receive equal treatment. Author’s comments on the State party’s observations on admissibility and the merits 15.1 On 14 September 2020, the author submitted comments to the effect that the rule concerning the exhaustion of domestic remedies did not apply if the application of such remedies was unlikely to bring effective relief. The author recal ls that the Committee found the communication in Kell v. Canada admissible, 10 concluding that, even assuming that domestic remedies had not been exhausted, the application of those remedies was unlikely to bring effective relief to the author. The author of the present communication reiterates that numerous domestic cases on exactl y the same issue, lodged in jurisdictions up to the Supreme Court, have not brought about reparations for the victims, given that all the resulting legislative reforms (Bill C -31 of 1985, Bill C-3 of 2011 and Bill S-3 of 2019) have contained provisions that were discriminatory on the basis of gender. 15.2 The author submits that funding for the Court Challenges Program was cut from 1992 to 1994, then reinstated from 1994 to 2006, but was not available for new applicants. Moreover, according to the indigenous lawyer and scholar Naiomi Metallic: No other disadvantaged group in Canada … has faced a law like section 67 of the Canadian Human Rights Act that actually prohibited claims against the law that is the largest source of discrimination for many Aborigina l people – the Indian Act … Although no similar explicit bans exist within the Canadian Bill of Rights and the Charter, court decisions interpreting the equality guarantees in both documents have made challenges to the Indian Act … effectively out of bounds … My review of the cases has led me to the conclusion that Aboriginal peoples in Canada are long overdue the opportunity to have their equality complaints heard on the merits, by decision-makers who truly appreciate the __________________ 10 22-03658 CEDAW/C/51/D/19/2008, para. 7.3. 9/19