ANALYSIS: The Dangerous Absurdity of Canada’s “Nation-to-Nation” Treaty with Manitoba Métis Federation Inc.

"Why did Ottawa sign a 'nation-to-nation' treaty with a corporation purporting to represent a landless, fully assimilated, colonial-era people?"

Author: Peter Best

What is a nation? According to Canadian philosopher Will Kymlicka, it is a “historical community, more or less institutionally complete, occupying a given territory or homeland sharing a distinct language and culture.”

Something a nation is not: a corporation.

So why did Ottawa sign a “nation-to-nation” treaty with a corporation purporting to represent a landless, fully assimilated, colonial-era people?

On November 30^th, 2024, the Government of Canada put its name to the Red River Métis Treaty, committing itself to a “nation-to-nation, government-to-government relationship” with the Red River Métis of Manitoba. To be effective, the treaty must still be ratified by Parliament.

Practically speaking, a “nation-to-nation” treaty requires two nations to participate. And while Manitoba Métis style themselves as “la Nouvelle Nation”, this is merely a branding exercise. Legally speaking, they are Manitoba Métis Federation Inc. (MMF Inc) a legally required work-around that implicitly recognizes their lack of genuine nationhood.

The term Métis has traditionally referred to descendants of any union of an Indigenous and non-Indigenous person within Canada. The most famous example of this occurred during the fur trade of the 18^th and 19^th centuries in the Red River area of Manitoba.

But this concept is not exclusive to the Prairies. The 1996 Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples recognized Métis communities in Labrador and the Maritimes. There are also robust communities in Ontario and elsewhere. As Métis lawyer Jean Teillet once put it, “Finding the boundaries of a physical settlement that can be called a Métis community is an exercise in futility.”

Significantly, areas identified as by the Métis as their homeland have already been allocated to other First Nations under various treaties. This overlap presents an irremediable problem. How can two “aboriginal groups” lay claim to the same piece of real estate simultaneously? Several First Nations have already launched legal action against the treaty.

Today 624,000 Canadians claim Métis identity, spread right across Canada. Of the 38,000 who belong to MMF Inc., about half live in Winnipeg. They are, in other words, fully-assimilated modern Canadians. As for a distinctive language, a mere 360 Métis say the peculiar Michif dialect is their mother tongue. And what passes for Métis culture is really a colonial-era pastiche of native and white elements.

Despite this obvious lack of geographic, linguistic, cultural or racial distinctiveness, a series of Supreme Court rulings has gradually placed a cloak of Indigeneity upon the Métis; now this process has culminated in an absurd “nation-to-nation” treaty.

If and when the treaty is ratified, MMF Inc. is in line to receive a vast range of self-government powers and federal funding. This includes the right to provide an undefinable Métis nation with education, health care, economic and social development, child and family services, justice, environmental protection, cultural development and on and on.

The stated goal of this massive transfer of power and funding is “Red River Métis Citizens having access to public programs and services that are reasonably comparable to those available to other Canadians.” But they already have access to the exact same health care, education, justice, welfare and economic development programs as any other resident of the province.

If fully implemented, the Red River Métis Treaty will create an entirely duplicative, parallel government for a small, indistinct and virtually undefinable group of long-assimilated Canadians. Beyond being a colossal waste of money, this threatens the individual rights of every so-called Métis citizen, as well as the sovereignty of Canada itself.

The treaty gives its founding corporation sole power to determine who is a citizen of its notional nation. And court rulings have already found that when Indian band law and the Charter collide, band law prevails if the ostensible purpose is to protect “Indigenous difference”. As a result, Indian reserves are now de facto Charter-free zones. The “citizens” of MMF Inc. can expect a similar diminution of their rights.

Finally, this treaty is yet another example of Canada’s ongoing process of self-emasculation. Similar in effect to the United Nation Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Persons, this could offer MMF Inc. the ability to delay or subvert a wide variety of natural resource and other projects under the guise of protecting its inherent right to self-government. But no competent national government should ever willingly give up its sovereign ability to decide what can and cannot occur within its own borders. And no other country has engaged in as much self-debasing behaviour as Canada.

Canada’s previous negotiations with Indigenous people were conducted with groups that met some basic definition of nationhood. They represented racially, linguistically and culturally distinct societies that once roamed across or occupied specific geographical areas, and practised recognizable forms of governance.

The modern Manitoba Métis meet none of these criteria. Rather, this new treaty will allow a corporation to provide duplicative services to assimilated customers already well-served by existing levels of governments. Whenever it reconvenes, Canada’s Parliament must reject the Red River Métis Treaty.

Peter Best is a retired lawyer based in Sudbury, Ontario and author of the 2020 book There Is No Difference. A longer version of this story first appeared at C2CJournal.ca