It was at thispoint that all three of the National Representative Organizations experienceda huge and ever-increasing pressure to articulate the positions they wouldbring to the Constitutional table.  It was also at this point thatI was contracted by the NCC to serve as the national co-ordinator for theNCC’s constitutional process.  Although these stresses reshaped virtuallyall of the participating Aboriginal organizations, I will concentrate primarilyon the impact of the constitutional negotiation process on Métisorganizations in Canada.

The previously submerged differenceswithin the NCC in terms of different solutions for common problems of theMétis and Non-Status Indians mentioned earlier, now surfaced witha vengeance.  These differences, combined with truly Machiavellianpolitical machinations of some members of the NCC Board of Directors, strainedthe organization beyond its capacities to successfully accommodate bothfactions.. The upshot -- to make a very complicated story which must betold another day more direct -- was that the Métis organizationsin Manitoba, Alberta, and Saskatchewan split from the NCC and eventuallyformed a new organization in 1983, called the Métis National Council(MNC). 

There were now at least two sets ofMétis populations represented by two National Aboriginal RepresentativeOrganizations.  On the one hand were the prairie Métis of theMNC and on the other were the Métis of the Northwest Territories,the Yukon, British Columbia, Ontario, Quebec and
The Maritimes (including a distinctMétis organization formed in Labrador in 1982) represented by theNCC.  Later in the constitutional process the organizations in theNorthwest Territories and Ontario aligned themselves with the MNC for purposesof constitutional representation.  Once the constitutional processwas over these two organizations left (or were ejected according to some)from the MNC.

Initially the split in the NCC workedlargely in favour of the overall Métis cause as the First MinistersConferences (FMCs) on Aboriginal Matters began in 1983.  With twodelegations representing the Métis point of view, there were upto four seats at the table (two each to the MNC and NCC) that could beoccupied at any given time by their respective Métis delegates. Newly recognized as distinct Aboriginal peoples, it appeared the time forthe assertion of Métis heritage in Canada had at last come.

Unfortunately the favourable potentialof this dual representation dissipated all too quickly as MNC strategistsplotted to limit the application of the constitutional term "Métis"to themselves, even though their organization did not even exist at thetime of its entrenchment in 1982.  By the end of the constitutionalprocess in 1992 in Charlottetown, the MNC position had hardened into aproposed Métis Nation Accord (see this link) that would have confinedapplication of the term Métis to those descended from scrip recipientsor those approved by MNC affiliates.  It was, opposed by the NCC delegationas well as by the federal government and several provinces. 

Current claims of MNC publicists notwithstanding,the agreement was NOT part of the final legal  -- October 9, 1992-- text Charlottetown Accord although reference was made in an earlierDraft Report ? Consensus Report August 28, 1992 --to some form of futurenegotiations with the MNC.  It was the final Legal Text of the reportthat was defeated at the national referendum ? the consensus report wasNOT part of that referendum, nor did it contain the final text of the subsequentlydefeated text of the Métis Nation Accord.  Even if the referendumhad succeeded, the Métis Nation Accord, contrary to current MNCdogma, would NOT have been part of the Charlottetown Accord.

TheMétis and Bill C-31

Before we leave the constitutional arena,there was one other significant factor that impacted on Métis organizationsacross Canada.  The only accomplishment of the 1983 FMC (apart fromcontinuing the process for almost a decade) was agreeing to entrench theequality of Aboriginal rights as between male and female Aboriginal persons. As a result the Indian Act was amended by Bill C-31 in 1985 to permit theregistration of some persons who lost, (or whose immediate ancestors lost)their status as registered Indians via the blatantly discriminatory enfranchisementsections of the Indian Act.

This legislation created a situationin which persons that had identified themselves as Métis, sometimesfor two or more generations, suddenly had the opportunity to register themselvesas status Indians.  Although it is impossible to determine how manyof the 112,000 persons registered under this initiative were self-identifyingMétis, the process forced the issue of overlapping Métisand Non-Status Indian identity into the limelight.

The fundamental question the C-31 processraised was whether or not a self-identifying Métis person couldregister under the Indian Act as a status Indian and still legitimatelyidentify him or herself as a Métis.  There is no question thatin 1985 many if not most of the Métis in Canada were descendantsof Métis who were both culturally and politically distinct fromtheir Indian cousins. Historically, however, there is no doubt that scoresif not hundreds of legitimate Métis people were included in sometreaties and subsequently registered under the Indian Act as status Indians.In fact, an entire community of Métis in Rainy River in northwesternOntario was included under the Halfbreed Adhesion to Treaty Three in 1875.  There is considerable documentation in the records of Indian and NorthernAffairs Canada (INAC) of Métis who surrendered their status (voluntarilyenfranchised) under the Indian Act in favour of receiving scrip. No one can legitimately deny the huge grey area in which Métis andIndian identity system either overlap or co-exist in a kind of dual citizenship.

Predictably, the MNC declared outrightrejection of any Métis person who registered under the Indian Act,as did (all?) the Métis Settlements of Alberta.   TheMNC position is based on their dogma that all real Métis are separateand distinct from other Aboriginal peoples. The Settlements position isbased on the idea that Métis registered under the Indian Act ofare "double-dipping" in terms of benefits.