OrilliaMatters welcomes letters to the editor at [email protected] or via the website. Please include your full name, daytime phone number and address (for verification of authorship, not publication). The following letter is in response to a column by Jeff Monague, published April 21.
In a recent column, Jeff Monague made many inaccurate statements, which I feel require clarification.
Most importantly, I don’t blame or fault Mr. Monague for the inaccuracies. They come from the Manitoba Métis Federation’s deliberate misinformation campaign against Métis communities in Ontario, which have been allowed to spread and take hold through the Chiefs of Ontario’s refusal to speak with us in an open and transparent forum. This has created so much misunderstanding. It is important that we deal in facts, not rumours.
I use the term inaccuracies because I know Mr. Monague by reputation and I do not believe he would deliberately share misinformation. However, sharing these inaccuracies effectively erases the Georgian Bay Métis Community’s history, culture, identity, collective aspirations, and inherent right of self-determination.
We need to be clear: Bill C-53 is not about harvesting or land rights. This legislation is only about the internal governance of the Métis Nation of Ontario (MNO) as the chosen government of Métis people and communities in Ontario. It does not acknowledge, address, or seek to add to any Métis community’s harvesting rights, including the Georgian Bay Métis Community’s.
Mr. Monague is correct that, unlike our First Nations neighbours, our Métis community did not sign a treaty. In fact, except for the Halfbreed (sic) Adhesion to Treaty No. 3 signed by the Northwestern Ontario Métis Community in 1875, Canada systematically excluded Métis communities from the treaty process — often in direct opposition to First Nations leaders of the time who supported Métis claims.
This exclusion has been felt by and even has some of its origins rooted in Georgian Bay. In 1839-40, members of the Georgian Bay Métis Community confronted Indian Agent Samuel Jarvis in Penetanguishene, surrounded his house, and threatened to burn it down if he did not deal with their unique Métis interests. Our ancestors then petitioned the Crown for reinclusion in present giving between the Crown, First Nations, and Métis in the Upper Great Lakes.
In response, the Crown created “the mode of Excluding Halfbreeds (sic) from Receiving Presents.” This policy recognized our community in Penetanguishene and, before that, Drummond Island as being a distinct people of that territory who governed ourselves separately from neighbouring Anishinaabe. However, it prohibited including Métis in present giving, which was an important diplomatic and relationship renewal custom between the Crown and Indigenous peoples prior to treaty.
Although excluded by the Crown, our Métis community and others throughout the Upper Great Lakes continued to exercise its own political agency — as it continues to do today. Despite recent attempts by others to define our identity as being only of “mixed ancestry” or simply as having a distant First Nations ancestor, our collective identity and existence never was, and never will be, defined by or undone by recent political rhetoric. While the Crown wanted Métis communities to succumb and assimilate into the increasing waves of settlers, our families and culture endured.
Bill C-53 is a testament to our community’s resilience and seeks to finally address the exclusion and denial of our collective existence as a distinct Indigenous people worthy of respect, not only for our community, but for other Métis communities in Ontario, Alberta, and Saskatchewan. Similar legislation will also be coming forward to recognize the Métis government in Manitoba.
While completely unrelated to Bill C-53, recognition of our harvesting rights is not new. The harvesting rights of the historic Métis communities in Ontario, including ours, have been publicly recognized by the Government of Ontario for the last 20 years.
First Nations even stood beside us to defend this recognition when Ontario failed to uphold the terms of our agreement within our community’s traditional territory in 2004. In response, the entire Georgian Bay Métis Council, alongside then-MNO president Belcourt and Chiefs of Ontario Regional Chief Charles Fox, went to Queen’s Park and demanded Ontario uphold the terms of our harvesting agreement on Louis Riel Day.
Métis have been harvesting in the Upper Great Lakes for 200 years. They harvest within a strict and transparent reporting regime governed by the MNO harvesting policy, which is built upon the principle of multigenerational sustainability. To suggest they are a threat to First Nations harvesting is not grounded in any demonstrable statistics and ignores the fact that Ontario sells more than 600,000 hunting licences to non-Indigenous harvesters, including non-Canadian tourist sport hunters. A far larger threat, if there is one.
Again, none of this is new. First Nations recognition of Upper Great Lakes Métis communities is not new. Feeding our Métis families in the ways of our ancestors is not new. Métis denialism, fear mongering, and hate speech are.
Mr. Monague rightly points out that there is a double standard in the Métis right to determine our own citizenship while First Nations membership is limited by the Indian Act. Métis have long held that this double standard is unacceptable. First Nations must have the right to determine their own membership without interference by external governments.
It is similarly unacceptable, however, for anyone to suggest that the answer to the oppression brought on by the Indian Act is to inflict that same oppression onto another Indigenous people. The answer is to attack the Indian Act and dismantle it, not attack the Métis people. Even if the MNO disappeared tomorrow, First Nations would still face the discrimination and unfairness embedded in the Indian Act. No one’s life improves by making someone else’s worse.
It is clear that there are many misconceptions about Bill C-53 and Métis communities in Ontario, which can only be solved by sitting down and talking. We won’t agree on everything, but we won’t get anywhere without talking it out. Our ancestors are watching. I believe they would wish to see us show the love, respect, bravery, truth, honesty, humility, and wisdom that they showed in their time.
I respect Mr. Monague and his proven track record as an advocate for change. I hope we can start a dialogue and set an example for other Métis and First Nations leaders so that we can get back to sitting around the same table and talking to, rather than talking about, each other.
For more information on Bill C-53 and what it means for Métis communities visit, billc53.ca.
Jordyn Playne
President, Métis Nation of Ontario Youth Council, and citizen of the Georgian Bay Métis Community
