This paper has been contracted by the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples to insure that the Commission has acquired information on Metis from every part of Canada. It is designed to focus attention on the Metis not usually associated with the prairie provinces. Previously commissioned material will be referred to frequently in endnotes to guide readers who may require more detail on some of the issues addressed in this paper.
The primary purpose of this paper is to inform the Commission of the existence and aspirations of Metis populations in Canada which both pre- date and post-date the better-known Metis populations of the prairie provinces. The historical identity and current reality of those Metis populations will be described in the first part of the paper. In the second part of the paper the Aboriginal Rights, Treaty Rights, and claims of these distinct Metis populations will be outlined. In the final section of the paper, mechanisms and processes will be explored, both in terms of impediments to resolution of existing problems and in terms of proposals for accommodation of Metis everywhere in Canada.
A Pan-Canadian Metis Perspective
There is a large population of Aboriginal peoples in Canada. How large that population may be is the subject of considerable speculation. How that population should be identified and what terms should be used to describe the Metis portion of that population is the very question this paper is designed to address.
This paper also addresses the need for a pan-Canadian, or national, perspective on Metis peoples and issues in Canada. Although Metis have become a subject for much study in the last ten years, too much heat and very little light has been shed in terms of public understanding of Metis as an Aboriginal people who are living, and always have lived their lives everywhere in Canada. The tunnel-vision on prairie concerns that has been exercised by many writers on Metis issues has unfortunately led to what has been aptly called "Red River Myopia." This paper does not challenge or question the validity of the history, culture, and aspirations of the Metis who are associated with the western prairies. Circumstances have made it necessary, however, to emphasize in this paper, those Metis collectivities in other parts of Canada who have a culture, history, and aspirations of their own. The legal, political and academic over-emphasis on the prairie populations has resulted in a lack of recognition and accommodation of Metis elsewhere in Canada. It is this imbalance which this paper hopes to address.
A secondary, but no less significant aspect of this paper is to educate Canadians in general, through the Royal Commission, to the concept of pan-Canadian Metis populations. It is not well known that there are Metis individuals, groups, and communities indigenous to almost every part of Canada. Most of these Metis people have a history, and a culture that is often parallel to, but distinct from, the development of the Red River Metis community.
The paper examines the proposition that the recognition
of Metis in Section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982 applies to all Metis
wherever they live in Canada, and whatever their genesis or origin. The
paper will propose that processes and mechanisms must be specifically developed
to accommodate those Metis people who are not directly associated with
the history and culture of Louis Riel. Whatever "new relationship" might
be proposed between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal peoples in Canada must
apply to all Aboriginal people in Canada, including all Metis people, whatever
their culture and wherever they are located.
It is important to understand that this paper is based on a number of premises or assumptions which have been previously rationalized in great detail in many books and other research papers, including those recently contracted by the Commission. Rather than repeat those rationalizations in this paper, the premises will simply be listed and references supplied to the corresponding support documents. The premises are as follows:
1. The Aboriginal population of Canada is permanent
This statement may appear self-evident or even redundant, to some people, but the simple fact is that few non-Aboriginal Canadians would have believed this statement prior to the 1969 federal White Paper on Indian Policy. Up to that date the entire thrust of Indian policy in Canada was based on the simple, but incorrect assumption, that the Aboriginal population of Canada was to eventually become extinct.
It was in the context of the massive negative reaction to the White Paper by the Aboriginal community that other Canadians began to learn more about the Aboriginal population in Canada. It was not until the constitutional reform process of the 1980's and 1990's that the perception of the "vanishing race" began to reverse itself in the minds of significant numbers of Canadians.
For the purposes of this paper, this reversal is essential. The so-called "Aboriginal problem" cannot be ignored because it is not going to disappear into some kind of historic sunset with a so-called vanishing race. The issues are real, the Aboriginal peoples are a permanent element of Canada's future, and the future relationship between non-Aboriginal and Aboriginal people must be negotiated on an equitable basis with all of them.
2. Metis are Aboriginal (Indigenous) Peoples
As self-evident as this statement may seem to be, given the terminology of Section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982, there is a real resistance or reluctance on the part of federal and provincial governments to actually behave as if this statement is true. There is an undercurrent of disbelief in some legal and academic writing that implies Metis are only partially Aboriginal because they are only partially Indian. (See page 97) This paper will demonstrate that this kind of thinking, which might be called the theory of derivative rights, produces very real and unjust impediments to access to and the exercise of Aboriginal rights by Metis people.
3. There are many distinct Metis populations
One of the most fundamental premises of this paper is that there are many distinct Metis population in Canada which, like the various first Nations of Indian peoples, require flexible forms of accommodation within the Canadian mosaic. Some of these populations are historically and hereditarily linked and some are not. Some (Rainy River) have long historical traditions of self-identification as Metis and some (Labrador) are more recent. The scope and time constraints of this paper will not permit a fully detailed description of these populations, but pertinent historic and current examples will be highlighted.
4. Aboriginal & Treaty Rights and Claims of Metis
There is a corresponding, and equally destructive assumption on the part of many policy analysts that Metis only require social and economic equity to resolve their issues. The fundamental issues of the basic human right of self-determination as a distinct people is set aside in favour of resolving the more immediate issues of "upgrading" those who government bureaucrats too often perceive as being economically deprived. This paper intends to re-assert the basis of Aboriginal and
Treaty rights and claims of Metis other than those of the Manitoba Act and the Dominion Lands Act.
5. Accommodation of all Aboriginal People
The final premise set out in this paper is that the underlying principle and active intent of Section 35 of the Constitution Act 1982 is to provide a constitutional and legal base from which ALL Aboriginal people in Canada can be equitably accommodated. This paper assumes the current governments of Canada will uphold the honour of the Crown. The proposals in this paper for resolution of the issues presented by the Metis are based on an assumption that the political will to re-negotiate the relationship between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people in Canada does exist.
That cannot happen, however, until a much more fundamental questions is directly confronted. That question is:
"Does Aboriginal ancestry really mean anything in Canada in 1994?"
If the answer to this question is negative, then a retreat is necessary to the pre-patriation era in Canada when official government policy was concentrated on the extinction of distinctions between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Canadians. The concept of "Metis" then becomes just another euphemism for assimilation, or, at best, a colourful label for a quaint episode in Canadian history.
If the answer to the question is positive, a much greater challenge emerges. Canadians, must re-evaluate ancient prejudices and outmoded categorizations. It then becomes necessary to propose and develop a new relationship between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Canadians based on mutual respect and co-operative accommodation.
This paper assumes that Metis people everywhere in Canada have a major role and responsibility to play in that scenario. They cannot even begin however, until it becomes clear that ALL people of Aboriginal ancestry -- and the Aboriginal and Treaty rights which pertain to them-- are acted upon, and that all Metis collectivities are legitimate players in the process of negotiating that new relationship.
This paper can, at best, only hope to sketch an outline of the issues and concerns it addresses. In the eight or ten weeks it will take to complete this paper, virtually no primary research can be undertaken. Many issues and dozens, if not scores, of Metis communities will go unmentioned. The time and resources to do more are simply not available and to those who may feel slighted or left out apologies are offered in advance.
By the same token, this is a valuable and welcome opportunity to at least begin the process of badly needed public education on Metis peoples in Canada. The author has been fortunate enough to be able to work full-time with Aboriginal organizations on these issues for the last 16 years and to have at his disposal literally hundreds of thousands of pages of books, position papers, and other letters and documents. If only to open the door to greater understanding, the attempt is worth the effort.
At the very least, this paper should demonstrate the desperate need for more research in this area. The outline approach of this paper deserves a great deal more depth. Metis groups and communities all across Canada need the resources to explore their own history and articulate their own vision of themselves both as Aboriginal people and as Canadians. The reader should be warned that this paper is a journey through a minefield of confusing semantics, ambiguous questions, contradictory evidence, conflicting claims, and competing bureaucracies. It is also an outline of the story of hundreds of thousands of Canadians who are struggling to assert their cultural heritage and identity in face of overwhelming opposition from Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people alike.
It is to those people and to that struggle that this paper is dedicated.
Given the limitations of this paper, and the significance of many of the issues it deals with, four appendicies will be attached to this paper to provide more detail than the scope of the paper itself permits.