OTTAWA SIGNED HISTORIC SELF-GOVERNMENT AGREEMENTS WITH THE METIS NATIONS OF ALBERTA, ONTARIO AND SASKATCHEWAN. IT’S A ‘MAJOR STEP’ TOWARD GUARANTEEING THEIR RIGHTS TO LAND AND RESOURCES.
Groups to decide who can claim citizenship
OTTAWA• The federal government has signed self-government agreements with three provincial branches of the Métis Nation in Ontario, Alberta and Saskatchewan on Thursday, the first time Ottawa has forged such arrangements with Métis groups.
For decades, Métis organizations have fought to achieve the same recognition of rights as First Nations. These self-government agreements follow several recent Supreme Court of Canada decisions that have formally recognized Métis Aboriginal rights and the federal government’s responsibility for issues affecting the Métis.
The agreements, signed at a ceremony in Ottawa Thursday by Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Carolyn Bennett and the Métis Nation of Ontario, the Métis Nation of Alberta and the Métis Nation-Saskatchewan, do not set out specific terms for governance of areas like education or health care, nor do they resolve existing land claims. Instead, they are intended as an upfront recognition of the Métis right to self-government, with further agreements on specific areas of jurisdiction to follow.
“For generations, Métis weren’t recognized at all by the federal government. This is a sad truth that our government is committed to address,” Bennett said. “Métis were the forgotten people. You have fought to come out of the shadows. And today, we take another important step.”
While Bennett said her government recognizes the inherent rights of Métis communities in central and Western Canada, she had strong words for the growing number of so-called Métis groups that have cropped up in Quebec and Atlantic Canada claiming Aboriginal rights to hunt and fish, suggesting they do not qualify as Métis. Among other things, the new agreements recognize Métis governments’ jurisdiction over the sometimes fraught question of who gets to claim Métis citizenship.
While previous self-government agreements with
IT’S ABOUT RECOGNITION AND RESPECT FOR OUR GOVERNMENTS AS GOVERNMENTS
First Nations have taken many years to negotiate, these were set out in the three years since a landmark 2016 Supreme Court ruling. They align with the Liberal government’s effort to acknowledge Aboriginal rights from the outset, rather than at the culmination of decades of negotiation.
“This is a dramatic shift in attitude for Canada,” said Métis Nation of Alberta President Audrey Poitras. “Reconciliation requires transformative change, and the agreement signed today gives me faith that transformative change is really on its way.”
The Métis governments will now have to develop their own constitutions, to be funded by the federal government, and will need to negotiate new fiscal arrangements with Ottawa. They may also negotiate agreements for jurisdiction of areas including child care, language and administration of justice.
The agreements further set out an expectation that the federal minister will recommend legislation to Parliament to affirm the legal status of the Métis governments, though this almost certainly will not happen before the fall federal election.
Though the term Métis has been claimed by a number of communities of mixed Indigenous and European ancestry across Canada, the Métis Nation represents communities in Western Canada that emerged along fur trading routes and have historic ties to places like the Red River Settlement, where Louis Riel emerged as the most famous Métis leader. It has five provincial affiliates in Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia.
“Fundamentally, this is about recognition. It’s about recognition and respect for our governments as governments,” said Métis Nation of Ontario President Margaret Froh.
In 2003, the Supreme Court of Canada first defined Métis rights and established criteria, known as the Powley test, to determine who can qualify for those rights. A subsequent Supreme Court decision in 2016 clarified the federal government’s legal obligations to the Métis, and paved the way for these latest negotiations.
Since the 2003 Powley decision, however, there has been a dramatic spike in the number of Canadians claiming to be Métis, especially in Quebec and Atlantic Canada. Census data shows that the number of people who call themselves Métis rose by nearly 150 per cent in Quebec between 2006 and 2016. Critics allege that many of these people are interested only in acquiring Aboriginal hunting and fishing rights.
There was little sympathy for so-called Eastern Métis groups during Thursday’s ceremony. “I think there are significant concerns of people handing out Métis cards to people who are not Métis,” Bennett said, to cheers and applause. “And I think that some of the research is showing that people misunderstand what capital-M Métis are. This is not just being able to show that you had a great-greatgrandmother somewhere who was Indigenous. This is why … nations will determine who their members are.”