Unlawful to Protest

At this time of "the great settlement," the Indian Act made it a criminal offence to collect money towards land claims. (This section of the Act was not removed until 1951.) The Allied Tribes disbanded. Not until 1949 was the provincial restriction to vote lifted from native people; full enfranchisement at the federal level occurred in 1960.

To many, the issue of the land question hibernated after 1927. Others recognized that, until the rulings of Parliament were tested in court, nothing was settled. In 1964, two natives from Nanaimo were charged and convicted under the B.C. Game Act for having the carcasses of six deer in their possession out of season. This case, Regina v. White and Bob, was appealed and won in the B.C. Court of Appeal on the basis that their treaty granted them the right to hunt, by virtue of the Indian Act, and this took precedence over B.C. law.