Note: Rather than include the documentation related to the development of the Confederacy in the body of the following text, links are provided so that readers can select for themsleves whatever of the documentation they want to read. Others can skip that kind of detail and just examine the following overview.
Following the failure of the Charlottetown Accord Referendum in 1992, it became apparent to a group of Métis elected leaders and Constitutional Commissioners from Ontario Quebec, New Brunswick, and Labrador that a new initiative was necessary to keep Métis issues in the forefront of the national Aboriginal agenda. They were all committed to creating a fresh focus on Metis issues and to challenging the attempts of the Metis National Council (MNC) to establish a restrictive prairie oriented national definition of Metis. Each of these founding organizations was, at the time, an affiliate of the Native Council of Canada and are, today affiliates of the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples -- although all of the Presidents of the originating associations has changed.
At the same time, the organizers of the Confederacy of Métis Peoples concept wanted to avoid further splintering of the national Métis constituency or creating yet another organization competing for scarce government dollars. The group adopted the Confederacy approach both because it was less threatening to existing organizations, and because a confederacy structure allowed its participants to maintain their own sets of internal and/or regional priorities.
The formal development of the Confederacy began with a resolution of the NCC General Assembly in 1992. The resolution authorized the Confederacy to use NCC facilities to promote the interests of NCC Métis constituents. The first formal activity of the Confederacy was a special workshop held in conjunction with that Assembly. Participants at this workshop discussed and developed a set of resolutions on Métis issues for the consideration of the Assembly in session. The resolutions were passed unanimously by the Assembly, although the delegates of the Metis Nation of the Northwest Territories withheld their vote.
The resolutions addressed the following issues.
Resolution #22 - National Meeting of Métis From Every Part of Canada
Resolution #23 - Aboriginal and Treaty Rights and Claims of Métis
Resolution #24 - Mandate for Confederacy of the Metis Peoples in Canada
Resolution #25 - Representation of Métis
Resolution #26 - Provincial Government Recognition of Métis
Resolution #27 - Recognition of Métis in Section 91(24)
Resolution #28
- Métis Identity and Definition
As the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (RCAP) began to develop fora for collecting information on Métis peoples in Canada, it became obvious that the Metis National Council had managed to dominate the Metis Round Tableby virtually excluding presentations by eastern Metis peoples. With the support of the NCC, the Confederacy negotiated the creation a separate Métis Circle with RCAP to hear concerns of other Métis peoples. A background discussion paper for the Métis Circle was commissioned by RCAP to reflect those concerns.
Following the Métis Circle, Martin Dunn was contracted by RCAP to participate with the RCAP Métis Policy Team to provide input on eastern Métis peoples. The Métis Policy Team was, however, very much dominated by individuals with a prairie Métis perpective, and the final draft of the Team's report reflected very little of the eastern input. Book Four of the RCAP Final Report contains the text of Métis issues and can be dowloaded from the RCAP Report site.
Under the CAP Presidency of Jim Sinclair (who led the MNC split from the NCC in 1983 and was later replaced as MNC President because he was not Métis) there was virtually no activity on Métis issues between 1994 and 1996 at the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples, and the Assembly resolutions related to the Confederacy passed at the time of his election were completely ignored.
Early in 1998 CAP sponsored a national planning meeting of Métis individuals and representatives in Edmonton. The results of that meeting was a Consensus Statement which, among other things, considered the idea of a confederacy as a vehicle for encouraging pan-Canadian co-operation of Métis peoples. The latest activity of the Confederacy has been to establish a presence on the Internet via The Other Métis website.
The future structure and activity of the Confederacy of Métis Peoples will depend on the goals and activities of its participants. At this stage there are no plans to incorporate or institutionalize the Confederacy itself, although it might be necessary to establish an incorported Secretariat to take care of business. There has also been little need, so far, to formalize criteria for the inclusion of participating individuals, communities, organizations and/or Nations as "official participants" in the Confederacy.
