From dishonour to distinction
Métis leader Louis Riel recognized as Manitoba’s honorary first premier.
When Louis Riel was forced to escape from Manitoba in the summer of 1870, after the arrival of troops from eastern Canada, it marked the beginning of a prolonged period of exile for the Métis leader. Now, more than a century and a half later, Riel has received a posthumous title of respect.
The Manitoba government has officially recognized Riel as the province’s honorary first premier. Riel was the leader of Manitoba’s first provisional government, which successfully negotiated terms of union with Canada in 1870, leading to the entrenchment of French-language and Métis rights in the Manitoba Act.
“This is about acknowledging our true history as one people, as one province with a shared heritage and one common destiny moving forward into the future,” newly elected Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew said last fall during a news conference that followed the introduction of Bill 2, the Louis Riel Act.
The legislation, which became law on December 7, 2023, also requires the minister of education to take “reasonable steps” to ensure that the curriculum used in schools includes Riel’s contributions to Manitoba and to Canada.
Manitoba’s Métis community has been fighting to have Riel recognized for more than two decades. Manitoba Métis Federation president David Chartrand called the legislation a “long time coming.”
The new law is a significant milestone not only for the Métis community but for all Manitobans, said Kinew, who is Anishinaabe and the province’s first First Nations premier.
Riel led an armed resistance during the fall and winter of 1869–70 after Canada purchased Rupert’s Land — an area comprising all of today’s Manitoba, as well as parts of Saskatchewan, Alberta, the Northwest Territories, Ontario, Quebec, and Nunavut — from the Hudson’s Bay Company. The federal government had failed to consult the people living in the territory — including some twelve thousand mostly Métis people in the Red River Settlement in and around present-day Winnipeg — prior to assuming control of the colony.
Riel and several hundred supporters seized Upper Fort
Garry (now part of Winnipeg) and established the Legislative Assembly of Assiniboia. It marked the first time a governing body in the territory was made up of elected members. Riel was voted in as president.
The Métis leader’s fate would take a turn for the worse, though. Shortly after negotiating Manitoba’s entry into Confederation with Riel’s delegates, the government of Prime Minister John A. Macdonald deployed a military force to Red River in 1870 to secure Canada’s sovereignty over the territory. Riel fled, fearing he would be captured by troops.
After remaining in exile for more than a decade, Riel returned to what is today Saskatchewan to lead a second armed campaign against Canada to demand rights for the Métis. This time he was captured by the Canadian military. Riel was tried, convicted of high treason, and hanged on November 16, 1885.
While he never held the title of premier, Riel is regarded as the founder of Manitoba. Louis Riel Day has been observed as a statutory holiday in the province since 2008.