Thank you for that.
If I understand you correctly, the Métis Nation, of course, sees the 150th anniversary as an important milestone for Canada.
At the current time the Métis Nation, as represented by the Métis National Council, is still pursuing its mandate. In 1983 we withdrew from what was known as the Native Council of Canada, now the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples, because we were a significant minority in a national body we created in 1971, the three prairie Métis organizations.
We were invited at that time to participate in constitutional conferences following repatriation of the Constitution from Great Britain. We were successful in getting a seat at the table. The raison d'être of the Métis National Council is to promote the right of self-determination and to acquire a land base. It basically spells out to a land base and self-government, but we've decided that it would be within the state of Canada. That is, not outside of Canada, but within it we're looking at that space.
We see the formation of Canada in 1867 as the four confederating provinces, and in 1870 the joining of Manitoba, which was at that time a province with a Métis majority population. We saw an accommodation at that time, which didn't happen. In fact, there was dispossession and, to this day, exclusion.
The Métis people, by and large, are excluded totally from the land claims processes of the federal government. We were excluded from the Prime Minister's apology. Those who went to Métis residential schools were excluded from the settlement agreement. We were excluded from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission mandate. We are excluded from First Nations and Inuit Health Branch services to status Indians and Inuit. So it's basically a story of exclusion.
What we're hoping is to find accommodation within Canada as a people, as a nation with true reconciliation based on re-acquiring our land base and having the freedom to be self-governing as one of the three orders of government in Canada, which is guaranteed to us by section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982, wherein the federal government's position is that the inherent right of self-government is already in there; it's just negotiating what it means.
We see that as a necessary requirement, and the 150th anniversary, which gives us some five years, is a great opportunity for us to work out a true reconciliation of the Métis people, the Métis Nation, within a united Canada.
At the front I have a Métis Nation protocol signed in September of 2008 with the federal government. One of the provisions in there is to address outstanding rights, including land rights, so we do have a framework to move forward with in connection with the federal government. We haven't triggered that potential, but at my last meeting with Minister Duncan several weeks ago we agreed to begin looking at that issue, particularly in light of the fact that the Supreme Court of Canada, on December 13 of this year, is going to hear the appeal of the Manitoba Métis Federation dealing with the 1.4 million acres of land that were guaranteed in the Constitution in 1870, which we say we in the end did not get. But that's a decision the court will have to deal with.
We do realize that we have to begin meeting on that, because there are going to be principles of law coming out of that decision—and some already have come out of the Manitoba Court of Appeal—which is going to change the relationship between the Métis Nation and the federal government, regardless of the outcome of that case.
As well, in 1994 the Métis of northwest Saskatchewan, the Métis Nation of Saskatchewan, and the Métis National Council filed a claim for the total of northwest Saskatchewan, claiming that we still have existing aboriginal title and rights and self-government within that territory, as the system used for dispossession of the Métis following 1870, a system known as scrip, which was dealing with Métis as individuals as opposed to collectives, was so vitiated by fraud that the Métis were basically just dispossessed of our land without legitimacy on the part of Canada. That is another case. But if we can settle it through a political process, that certainly would be a lot better than having to deal with the courts.