Metis Identity - A Source of Rights?
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Metis Identity - A Source of Rights? |
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It is little wonder then that the descendants of those populations experience some confusion as they try to re-assert their identity and reclaim their birthright as Aboriginal people. They are faced with three sets of hurdles. First they must overcome their own personal ignorance of, or exclusion from their heritage. Then they must overcome the imposition of outside terminology and definition which was very often specifically designed to ignore, discourage, or actively oppress the very identity they attempting to assert. Then, finally, they must experience the bitterness of competition with other individuals and groups --Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal-- for access to their birthright. It is truly astonishing that so many have succeeded, and it is no surprise that so many others have yet to succeed.
From the outset, this presentation has been positioning itself to answer questions related to the future of Métis in Canada. To begin that process there are two questions which were posed at the beginning of the paper which must now be answered. Given what has been presented as the historical background and current context of the Métis in Canada, it is now possible to answer the questions.
"Why would anyone want to identify as Métis?"
and
"Why should anyone else care if some identifies as Métis? "
There are at least two answers to the first question. The most common, and most accurate response is that people identify as Métis because they are MÈéis. There really is no argument against that answer, but, at the same time, it is not particularly helpful in terms of increasing the understanding of people who are not Métis. This answer has a tendency to annoy people. The second answer, to put it bluntly, is that some people identify as Métis because they donít know what else to do. This answer has a tendency to infuriate almost everybody except the people who don't know what else to do, but it is a truthful answer that must be dealt with.
The paradigm outlined earlier which described transitional and bicultural Aboriginal populations. The description of the NCC Constituency in 1982, identified a broad range of circumstances which affected how Aboriginal individuals identified themselves. It is in that broad area of uncertain transition that we find people who adopt or cling to Métis identity as a kind of life raft, while they get their ìidentity bearings, so to speak.
Some, perhaps even most, of these people are, in fact Métis. Often, they have lost their connections with their communities of origin and it often takes years to find their way back to an assured sense being Métis. Although they may never reconnect to their physical community of origin, these people, by heritage, are Métis people with a just claim to their birthright as Métis.
There are others who "become" Métis. This is a difficult concept for many to grasp, but, there are mixed blood individuals and families, and even communities who are --even today-- rejected by both Indian and White worlds. They, just as the first Métis communities did, begin to build a distinct life for themselves. Being Métis becomes their way of looking at themselves and at the world. Unfortunately, these people are often perceived by members of more traditional Métis communities as ìwannabeesî and unjustly rejected by them. As one participant at the Métis workshop put it, "There are some people who are "have-to-bees."
Then there are those people of distant Aboriginal ancestry who identify as Métis in order to qualify for a benefit or a program designed to serve Métis people, or even as a beneficiary to a claim. It is this group that generates the greatest anxiety, and even outright paranoia, in both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal communities. These people are more accurately described as the ìwannagetsî and techniques for dealing with them will be outlined in the section on solutions.
The answer to the question, "Why should anyone care if a person identifies as Métis?" is considerably more complex. Some people care because the concept of Métis challenges their own sense of identity. Others care because they think they have their own rights and benefits to protect. Others care because they are anxious about the issue of cost. Non-Métis people concern themselves about Métis identity because they have the perception they have something lose to, or because of, the Métis.
There is another factor that effects all Aboriginal peoples but is rarely directly confronted. The "problem" of identity and definition is not exclusively a problem of the Aboriginal community. It must be admitted that there are at least two sets of identities in Canada, other than the French-English set. The first set is the population of the indigenous or Aboriginal people and their descendants. The second set is, for want of a better word, the immigrant or settler population and their descendants. The issue --pun intended-- of the interaction between these two populations is exactly what this paper is dealing with.
The factor that is too often ignored is that each of these populations has a distinct and --at least for a time-- mutually exclusive perception of the significance what being indigenous is about. These differences might be attributed to differences in cultural perspective, and that is probably the case. But that does not answer the more significant question of how fundamentally different that perspective might be and what impact that has on the asipirations of MÈtis peoples. In the context of a discussion of what being "Canadian" means, Harold Cardinal said:
"The basic task that remains after three or centuries of contact between Indians and whites is still the construction of a bridge of understanding that exist as separate realities. "
Between the two, related to, and yet distinct from both, sat the Métis. From the Aboriginal perspective of Indians and Inuit, most Métis, at first glance, appear to be part of the settler group. From the point of view of the settler group, those same Métis seem to part of the indigenous group. The situation does not seem to have changed much in 300 years.
Put in its simplest terms, the major impediment to the achievement of Métis hopes and aspirations as an indigenous and Aboriginal people in Canada is the fundamental misunderstanding most Canadians, many Governments, and even some Métis, have about what and who the Métis people are. The fact that fully understanding one simple word --"Métis"-- might dissolve that impediment seems almost beyond possibility, but that is a possibility that must be entertained.
Having briefly discussed how the issues of identity, identification and can be an impediment to the resolution of Métis, it is now possible to directly address a related impediment --that of governments and their interaction with Métis.
I think it will be more productive to examine the character of the relationship between governments and MÈtis rather than dealing with the technicalities.
The historical background presented earlier clearly demonstrated that Métis (by whatever name they were called at any given time) often held a dominant or ìbalance-of-powerî position in terms of the military and economic life of Canada. When that situation existed, they were tolerated and often accommodated by colonial and post-Confederation governments, at least up to the point where those authorities could technically or militarily usurp those populations. At that point, which happened (and is happening) at different time and in different parts of Canada, Métis suddenly became a ìconflictî that had to be ìmanaged,î rather than as ìissueî that must be ìresolved.î
From the perspective of this paper that attitude, and the approaches dictated by ìconflict managementî techniques, have become a major part of the problem. The conflict management syndrome is part of a political and bureaucratic wall that is all too familiar to almost any Aboriginal group or organization that has approached government since the Royal Proclamation. Conflict management, which is, fundamentally, an adversarial process, has several readily identifiable elements:
1. Deny the problem
2. Ignore the problem
3. Deflect the problem
4. Identify/Analyze the problem
5. Consult on the problem
6. Introduce opposition to the problem
7. Divide/Conquer participants in problem
8. Co-opt the problem
9. Declare the problem eliminated
10. When the declaration is challenged, go back to 1.
These time proven techniques have the additional ìadvantagesî of being primarily unilateral, and often involving considerable amounts of government funding. Given enough time and space it would be possible to show how every federal and provincial government in Canada has used most of these techniques at one time or another in order to avoid accommodation of MÈtis aspiration.
Some governments have denied Métis exists within their borders. Federal and provincial governments have kept Métis dancing on the head of the 91(24) pin since Confederation. Literally millions of dollars have been spent studying and analyzing ìthe Métis questionî with no perceivable benefit to the MÈtis community. Consultation processes have dragged on for years with few concrete results. Third party and Indian interests have been encouraged to oppose Métis claims. Diversity in the Métis community has been manipulated to encourage disunity. Métis issues have been shuffled into the Aboriginal deck without specific mechanisms for resolution.
The single most serious issue in this context is that of federal jurisdiction for Métis under Section 91(24) and the corresponding previously identified strategy of off-loading responsibility for Métis from federal to provincial governments. The historical background has already indicated how the Indian Act has been used in this context, and other papers have already explored this issue in detail. It will be discussed here only in terms of its current role as an impediment and its future potential for solution.
If there is to be a new relationship established between Métis people and governments in Canada, there must be a concerted effort to destroy that treadmill. A major restructuring of government policy in relation to Aboriginal people must take place. The conflict management regime must be rooted out and replaced with overtly co-operative and accommodative techniques which might be listed as follows.
1. Acknowledge the issue
2. Co-operatively address the nature of the issue
3. Develop consensus on processes needed for resolution
4. Confirm validity of processes with affected constituency
5. Examine/propose options for resolution
6. Review/confirm proposed resolution with constituency
7. Co-operatively execute implementation of resolution
8. Provide mutually agreeable conflict resolution processes
9. Periodically review implementation with constituency
10. Go back to 1 with next problem/issue
In order to be effective, the accommodation
mode must be based on clearly expressed mandates related to carefully articulated
problems which are then addressed in a consensus building process. In a
later section a relationship will be drawn between these two problem solving
techniques and the regimes proposed in the Charlottetown Accord.
Resistance of Aboriginal Peoples
Perhaps the most difficult issues this presentation has to deal with are the impediments to Métis aspirations that arise from within the Aboriginal community itself, and particularly when those impediments exist among and between Métis communities.
In some Indian communities, there is a fundamental misunderstanding about Métis and their place in the broader Aboriginal community. It is very difficult for some Indians to believe, that any person of Indian ancestry would identify him or herself as anything but an Indian. This is particularly true, as was described earlier, in matriarchal or matrilineal communities or other communities where the ratio of self-declared Métis identity is low. It is also prevalent among people who are raised in strong traditional communities, and have not been alienated, much less completely separated, from their communities of origin.
"The issues (Corbiere-Laval) were being exploited by some Indians who felt we had gone too far in seeking a working relationship with the Metis, and we worked for a hell of a long time just trying to quell that hostility between treaty Indians and the Metis population. "
There seems to be a total lack of formal research in this area, but any Métis person can relate similar kinds of stories, just as Indians can relate stories of rejection in the non-Aboriginal community. There seem to be two general themes in the kind of rejection that is experienced.
The first is related to the ìwannabeeî syndrome that was discussed earlier. Too often Métis are perceived as being ìwhites with Aboriginal ancestry who couldnít quite make it as a real Indiansî, or who are calling themselves Métis only because they have been rejected as Indians. This is not to say that those situations do not exist. In fact, they do. The important thing to keep in mind is that they are the exception rather than the rule in the broader Métis community. It is patently unjust to presume that because some people who identify as Métis fit this description, that all Métis must be doing the same thing. In fairness, it should also be recognized that some of these people are in a ìtransition phaseî in terms of developing Métis identity. It cannot be condoned that they should be rejected or ridiculed as they go through that frequently painful experience.
There is another situation that is expressed less frequently, but may well be just a prevalent in some Indian communities. There can be no question that many status Indians are of mixed Aboriginal/non-Aboriginal heritage. There is a concern on the part of some of these people that, if Métis were to become a legally defined category of Aboriginal person (in the sense of status Indian under the Indian Act) that they themselves might be forced to identify as Métis. There is certainly considerable historical precedent to justify that fear. From this point of view, identification as a Métis, becomes another conquer and divide technique in terms of Aboriginal unity.
If governments, other Aboriginal peoples, and even Métis themselves are often confused, it can only be expected that the Canadian public will share that confusion. The public education system in Canada still creates and indelible association between Métis and the Louis Riel resistances. In itself, that is not a bad thing, but, unfortunately it does little to relieve the ignorance most Canadians share about other Métis populations.
There is an even more serious side-effect
of the lack of public awareness of pre- and post-Red River Métis
heritages. The thousands of Métis who have been separated from those
communities of origin, have virtually no opportunity in the current education
system, or even in most existing information systems, to discover or re-discover
their heritage. This situation becomes more apparent in the 1991 Canadian
census. The multiplicity of Métis responses, to say nothing of huge
numbers who identified only as Indian/non-Aboriginal indicates an uncertainty
in terms of identity that the current public education system actually
fosters. There can be little doubt that lack of public education and awareness
on the history and current status of Métis who live everywhere in
Canada is part of the problem and serves to at lest inhibit a viable solution.
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