Metis Identity - A Source of Rights?
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Metis Identity - A Source of Rights? |
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Representing Metis Peoples - Picking Up Mercury With a Fork
The evolution of todayís Aboriginal representative organizations from government program delivery agencies in the late 1960s to full-blown political entities capable of negotiating on an equal basis at a constitutional table in 1993 is a story that must be told another day. In terms of the focus of this paper, the development of those organization generated a major re-drawing of the backdrop against which the struggle for Métis identity was taking place.
Following the massive negative reaction to the federal White Paper on Indian Policy in 1969, there was a recognition of a need for more effective national representation on Aboriginal issues. The initial attempts to form a single national organization failed. Once unregistered Indian and Métis participation had been rejected by Status Indian organizations, government founders insisted that, Métis and unregistered Indians should form one national organization. The result was the creation of the Native Council of Canada (NCC).
A founder of one of the original representative organizations in Ontario, Paddy McGuire, made the following statement in an article published in 1980:
"When I founded the Ontario Provincial Association, I instructed the delegates to make sure that both the French name for the people with mixed blood, and the English name for people with mixed blood, be included in the name of our association. So all Halfbreeds of French and English would be protected. At the founding of OMNSIA, people thought you had to be part French to be a Metis. Some people still do. This is the reason why we named our association the Ontario Metis and Non-Status Indian Association, in order to cover all Natives with mixed blood as long as they didn't have legal status."
That statement clearly expresses a situation that was developing in many regions across Canada. Decades of exclusion by federal policy and legislation combined with rejection or indifference from both white and Indian communities had generated a very mixed population that had at least two things in common. -- Aboriginal ancestry and rejection. As of 1971, the NCC was mandated by their constituency and by government to represent a very diverse set of people.
The members of the provincial and territorial organizations that comprised the NCC shared in these characteristics in proportions that varied from region to region. Indian orientation was predominant on both coasts, Métis issues tended to predominate in the prairies and Ontario and Quebec showed a mixture of Métis, Halfbreed, and Indian sliding from west to east. At the time the term "Native" seemed to conveniently cover everybody.
As these people began to interact on a local, regional, provincial and national basis, they came to recognize at least two important elements in their relationship. They had common problems and, they required a diversity of solutions to those problems.
Encouraged by a series of court decisions which at least leaned toward recognition of the continued existence of Aboriginal rights, the leadership began to demand the completion of unfinished business in the area of Aboriginal and treaty rights.
Anxious to exploit the resources of the north, where Aboriginal people were still a majority, and to establish an international reputation for the promotion of human rights and fair treatment of indigenous peoples, the federal government responded to Aboriginal demands for resources to research and identify the potential claims of their respective constituencies.
The results of the research projects launched across the country had profound effect on the ways in which individual constituents began to think of themselves. People who had been brought up to think of themselves as socially or economically disadvantaged began to realize they had, in fact, been unjustly and illegally stripped of a birthright that was their own to claim.
Although the government summarily dismissed the claims of most NCC constituents south of the 60th parallel as being covered by treaty or superseded by law, the constituents themselves had developed very different convictions. They had come to the conclusion that there were two priority issues to be dealt with between Aboriginal peoples and Euro-Canadians.
These issues were:
1. The lack of legal recognition of the majority Aboriginal people in Canada as an Aboriginal and indigenous population; and
2. The lack of specific legal recognition of Aboriginal title and rights to their home and native land in Canadian law.
This conclusion was based on a growing
sense of conviction about themselves and their identity. The Indian constituency
of the NCC, rather than asking to be accepted by the federal government
as Indians, began to demand the federal government stop interfering with
Indian identity and definition. The mixed-blood, Halfbreed or Métis
constituency began to assert their fundamental human right to be recognized
and treated as a distinct people --regardless of what labels had been assigned
to them in the past.
Metis
Rights - Obstacles & Solutions
I now want to deal with impediments to and solutions for accommodation of Metis rights. In a nutshell the impediments can be characterized as being related to:
1. Identity and definitinal issues
2. Resistance of governments
3. Resistance of Aboriginal Peoples
4. Lack of Public Awareness
It should be evident by now that a real problem does exist in the context of defining a new relationship between Métis peoples and other peoples in Canada. The historical background and the descriptions of contemporary Métis communities should have revealed that the problem, at root, is one of identity, identification, and definition. It is a question of the identity of individuals and communities, and of how that identity coincides or conflicts with the definition that others apply to those same individuals and those same communities. In short, it is a problem in the relationship between internal and external processes of identity, identification and definition.
At the outset of this presentation, it was suggested that factors of identity and definition should be separated for as long as that separation contributed to an understanding of the issues. It is in the context of the resolution of the problem that the two factors must be rejoined. I have outlined at some length, the factor of identity in the lives of Métis communities and the affect of that identity on the capacity of individuals to access their Aboriginal and treaty rights. I have also demonstrated the parallel impact of ìoutsidersî --in the sense of governments, laws, and policies-- on those same individuals and communities. The impact of the ìoutsiderî is most evident in the processes of definition. Where the two elements of identity and definition meet is in the arena of identification.
It is in this arena that the internal and external perceptions of identity and definition meet and, only too often, challenge each other. Very often they are using the same words to mean different things as in "Métis" as Red River descendant vs. "Métis" as non-status Indian. Even worse, both ìsidesî use different words to mean the same thing, as in "Métis" and "Halfbreed" to describe mixed-blood populations. It is in this context government officials might insist - "But we must have a definition of Métis, so we know who or how many we are dealing with." The usual response is: - "The Métis know who they are, and it is Métis who will do the defining."
Everyone who has been involved in this experience knows how unproductive that can be. This kind of no-win situation is created when the participants fail to make critical distinctions between the process of identity and the process of definition.
As long as the processes of individual identity and community identification are compatible with the external influences of definition of that same community, there is no real problem. Even if the situation is one of political or even military conflict, at least each side knows who they are, and knows who the enemy is.
However, when a process of externally imposed concepts of identity or definition conflicts with, or even contradicts, an internal process of identity or definition, a very confused and confusing set of relationships is generated. Even if the internal and external parties are involved in an apparently cooperative mode, the differences in definition that each bring to the process can negatively effect, or even prevent, mutually desirable results. And that is precisely what this paper is proposing has happened in the context of Métis peoples and their historical and current relationship with other Canadians --both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal.
The confusion is compounded when there are conflicts and/or contradictions between national or regional components of the larger Métis community. I have tried to lay a foundation for some resolution of these conflicts by describing the application of different terminology to similar populations in various times and places, who all share at number of commonalities:
1. They were of mixed Aboriginal/non-Aboriginal ancestry
2. They were dispossessed of their birthright as indigenous and Aboriginal people
3. Some of their descendants were constituents (if not members) of NCC affiliates at the time the term "Métis" was included in The Constitution Act, 1982
4. Some of their descendants are seeking
recognition, and in some cases
compensation or accommodation
of themselves and their communities
as Aboriginal entities who have
been unjustly deprived of that
recognition and/or accommodation.
One difficulty lies in the fact that
these various populations were, intentionally or otherwise, kept ignorant
of each other for decades and even for generations. This paper has demonstrated
the simple historical fact that bigotry, colonial conflicts, historical
misrepresentation, and the Indian or Native policy of successive federal
and provincial governments have all played role in the suppression and
oppression of Métis populations at various times and places in Canada
from the 1600s to the present day.
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