Passing Métis government recognition bill a firm step towards reconciliation

This week marks the 20th anniversary of the landmark Métis rights victory at the Supreme Court of Canada in R. v. Powley. The decision ushered in a new era of Métis rights recognition. As Parliament returns this week, Métis self-government legislation remains on the Order Paper for debate. The passage of Bill C-53 will be the reconciliation the Supreme Court told Canada to undertake with the Métis on Sept. 19, 2003. Over the course of a decade-long legal battle, four levels of court heard the story of Steve Powley and his son Roddy—two Métis men who harvested a moose from their traditional lands around Sault Ste. Marie in north central Ontario to feed their family over the winter. In 1993, following a call to Crime Stoppers, they were charged with hunting without a tag. For the next 10 years, lawyers representing the Powleys and the Métis Nation of Ontario (MNO) would argue that they had the right to harvest that moose as rights-bearing Indigenous people. A tremendous amount of historic evidence was presented before the courts, including many examples of Métis communities in Ontario petitioning the Crown, or taking collective actions to make themselves known, from Rainy River to Penetanguishene to Moose Factory. One of the most famous examples was at Mica Bay along the shores of Lake Superior, where, in 1849, a group of First Nation and Métis men worked together to overtake a mine site, forcing its closure after the Crown had leased the land without negotiating a treaty. Margaret Froh is the president of the Métis Nation of Ontario. Photograph courtesy of the Métis Nation of Ontario What became known as the Mica Bay incident compelled the Crown to negotiate the Robinson Treaties. In his report, Treaty Commissioner William Benjamin Robinson explicitly acknowledged the presence of Métis families and recognized them as separate and distinct from the First Nations of the region. But despite local First Nations chiefs calling for Métis rights and interests to be addressed in the treaty negotiations, the broader Métis community was excluded from negotiations. This policy of exclusion of Métis from treaty negotiations continued as Canada moved westward. In rendering its decision in Powley, the Supreme Court instructed Canada to make this right and negotiate with the Métis. At the time, the province of Ontario took the position that the Métis had no rights to harvest whatsoever. But after 10 years of litigation, a unanimous Supreme Court of Canada agreed there were distinct Métis people and communities on the land before Canada became Canada and Ontario became Ontario, with a culture and identity of their own, and that their rights were entrenched in Section 35 of the Constitution. Just as governments negotiated recognition with First Nations following 1990’s R. v. Sparrow, governments began to do the same with the Métis following Powley. In 2017, based on years of historical research and negotiations with the MNO, the province of Ontario recognized seven historic Métis communities that meet the evidentiary requirements set out in the Supreme Court’s R. v. Powley decision. Today, the MNO exclusively represents the Métis descendants of those historic Ontario Métis communities and descendants of historic Métis communities in western Canada who now live in Ontario. And our Harvesting Agreement with the province permits only those who ancestrally connect to a historic Métis community in Ontario to harvest within the traditional harvesting territory of their historic community. The Powley victory did more than recognize the Powleys' community’s traditional lands around Sault Ste. Marie. Métis communities from Ontario westward had their inherent rights affirmed, claiming their rightful place as one of the Indigenous Peoples in Canada. This set the stage for a series of achievements for Métis people across the Métis Nation Homeland, including the groundbreaking 2019 Métis Government Recognition and Self-Government Agreements we negotiated with the Government of Canada. These agreements were updated in February 2023. In June 2023, on National Indigenous Peoples Day, the Government of Canada made good on its commitment in those agreements by introducing legislation to enable implementation of the Métis self-government agreements. The passage of Bill C-53 will be reconciliation in action for Métis people after 200 years of perseverance to have our culture, history, and rights recognized. Today, we look ahead to self-government and self-determination as the next milestone on our journey to Métis reconciliation. And we never forget that so much of our recent successes as a nation are grounded in the resilience of our people—like Steve and Roddy Powley, who never gave up their traditional way of life. Margaret Froh is the president of the Métis Nation of Ontario. The Hill Times