GETTING RIEL
Métis celebrate a surprising change of heart by the RCMP.
David Chartrand, a native of Duck Bay, Man., a village on the western shores of Lake Winnipegosis, was only 18 when he got active defending and promoting Métis culture. That was almost 40 years ago.
Nowadays, there’s not much that pleases Chartrand more than seeing a new generation of Métis youth turn their energy and passion to the same purpose. So it’s no surprise he has a lot of praise these days for 24-year-old Jesse Donovan.
Last week, after a petition and letter-writing campaign sparked by Donovan, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police undertook to return articles owned by Louis Riel — a crucifix, a book of his poetry and a knife — to the Métis people.
“Having these three artifacts is so important to us,” Chartrand, president for the past 20 years of the Manitoba Métis Federation, told the Star. “We want to bring it all home where it belongs.”
The possessions of the great Métis leader — who was executed by the Canadian government in 1885 after leading the Northwest Rebellion — hold a powerful symbolism, and have travelled an unlikely journey.
The RCMP said Riel’s crucifix was donated to the force in 1959 by the daughter of an officer who guarded him during his trial in Regina. Riel’s book of poetry was donated to the RCMP in 1943 and the hunting knife believed to be his was donated to the force in 1947.
Donovan, a third-year law student at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, said it was no small provocation that it was the RCMP that housed these articles in its own heritage centre in Regina.
“The RCMP and their historical predecessors, the Northwest Mounted Police, were the force which had terrorized the Métis for so many generations,” Donovan told the Star. “The wanton looting and desecration of Métis land holdings and possessions was facilitated by the RCMP.”
The long process of repatriating the objects started with the campaign to counter the historical portrayal of Riel as a criminal and traitor.
And if it’s not easy to make history in the first place, it might be harder still to correct it when a story told, however false, has been woven for generations into a national narrative and consciousness.
The Canadian government “had the pen and they had the power to write it,” Chartrand said.
“They wrote it in the way they wanted it to be portrayed. It wasn’t our history, our stories. That’s why Riel was portrayed as a villain, a traitor. History’s proven that’s not the case.”
Through long effort, in fact, the Métis have man- aged to turn the story around, in effect putting Sir John A. Macdonald, prime minister of the day, on trial and exposing the racism, intransigence and cruelty of Canadian leaders and society.
“One of the greatest struggles we’ve always had is to correct the historical negativity against Riel,” Chartrand said. “In the last 10 or 15 years, we’ve turned that completely around.”
In recent years, Riel has come to be recognized as a defender of his people and a father of Manitoba.
A campaign continues for Parliament to formally exonerate him of the charges on which he was convicted and executed. The Métis in Canada — a population approaching 500,000 — were recognized as Indigenous people under the Constitution Act of 1982. In Canada, Métis people trace their descent to Indigenous peoples who married settlers of French and European origin. The Métis homeland includes much of Western Canada and its spiritual centre is the Red River Colony in what is now Manitoba.
As the battle to restore Riel’s reputation was being won, Donovan — who said there is a “renaissance in Métis culture” — learned the RCMP held Riel’s property. He was incensed and began a campaign demanding its return.
He generated an outpouring of support from Métis communities across Saskatchewan and the country. When the RCMP made a ham-handed offer to “loan” the items to the Métis, the anger spiked even more. “This was a horrendous insult,” Donovan said.
He was surprised when the force agreed recently to a memorandum of understanding to return the artifacts to the full possession of the Métis Nation as soon as a heritage centre at Fort Garry is completed. (Construction is to start next year). Fort Garry is where Riel established his provisional government.
“I thought it would take quite a few years for this process to unfold,” Donovan said.
The intimate nature of the items, their symbolism of Riel’s faith and spirit, made it especially important that they be returned, he said. “They’re of immense personal significance for Louis Riel and they’re of immense cultural value for us. Our view is that Louis Riel was central to our culture and ongoing movement for self-determination.” Both the heritage centre and the emergence of a generation of educated, activist youth are gratifying developments to Métis leaders of long standing such as Chartrand and Clement Chartier, president of the Métis National Council. The new centre will give the Métis the opportunity to house their own treasured artifacts and tell their own story, not just about Riel and what happened to him, but about their history and experience from their own point of view. And to see a young man like Donovan step up to speed up the process “was powerful for me,” Chartrand said. “I just love it.” “I’ve been president for 20 years. I’m 57. Sooner or later, I’ve got to go. And we really have to have these torchbearers coming up.” Chartier, 71, said he was the first person from his home village of Buffalo Narrows, Sask., where he still resides, to get a high-school education. He went on to earn a law degree at the University of Saskatchewan. “It’s taken for granted now that you have aspirations” to higher education, he said. For Chartier and Chartrand, who attended the signing ceremony with the force’s deputy commissioner for Indigenous policing, Kevin Brosseau, himself Métis, the event was a symbolic step on a long journey. “This is part of a larger reconciliation movement between Canada and the Métis Nation by this current government,” Chartier told the Star. “This simply is another element we can see as a positive movement forward.” The current federal government has turned the former U.S. Embassy in Otta- wa, across the street from Parliament Hill, over to First Nations, Inuit and Métis leaders as a national headquarters, he said. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau “has totally embraced” a distinctions-based approach among First Nations, Inuit and the Métis Nation. Intergovernmental meetings include national representatives of Indigenous peoples. Trudeau has signed an accord between Canada and the Métis Nation.
“So all of that is helpful,” Chartier said. “And at the end of the day, while it’s slow, and depending on how long this party stays in power, I think we’ll eventually be quite successful in regaining our rightful place within Canadian society.
“We have a lot of things that need to be corrected,” Chartier said. But the return of the Riel artifacts was “a good-news story” which enhances Métis pride. “And it’s one that’s easily done. It doesn’t cost anybody anything.”
“Imagine,” Chartrand said. “Here we are in a new millennium, and we now are getting artifacts returned to us.
“But the beauty of all of this is that the deputy commissioner is a Métis.
“What irony is that?”