Thank you. We'll both be making some presentations here.
Good afternoon, Chair, committee members and observers.
As you said, Mr. Chair, we are also proud to observe International Inuit Day. Of course, we know that tomorrow is National Indigenous Veterans Day. Our nation served in many wars and conflicts with the country of Canada.
We are pleased to be able to appear before this committee on behalf of the Manitoba Métis Federation, the national government of the Red River Métis.
As you know, we are in the final stages of finishing the Red River Métis self-government recognition and implementation treaty. We expect it to be signed by our president and the minister in the immediate future and then presented to Parliament for final ratification.
With regard to identity theft, when signing and legislating a treaty, Canada needs to ask itself who it is treating with. This was asked by the Chiefs of Ontario, and we feel the need to echo it. Who does MNO represent? It is not the historic Métis nation.
This question is unignorable. Canadians cannot take a “recognize first, ask later” approach. It needs to be answered before they can be given the recognition that the Métis of the prairies have fought centuries for.
We went to war with Canada in 1870 and 1885, and then enlisted en masse to fight for Canada in both world wars, mere decades later. Likewise, we not only built alliances with first nations in the prairies but battled against them as well. All of this is to say that we are known by Canada and our first nations neighbours in the prairies as the Red River Métis.
The individuals who call themselves Métis in Ontario are not known in Ontario. Just last week, the Chiefs of Ontario shared with this committee that their elders have no stories of Métis ever existing in their territories. This is no longer about an individual academic or author stealing an identity. This is about the attempted theft of the identity of a nation.
The people who call themselves Métis in Ontario wrap themselves in the flag of the Red River Métis. That's our flag that was flown at Seven Oaks, at Red River. To put it simply, if those claiming to be Métis in Ontario are us, then why is it called the Red River jig or the Red River cart? Why is our beadwork of prairie flowers? Why would our victories and heroes and national symbols come from the prairies?
Our nation goes back centuries. We assure the committee that these “historic Métis communities” in most of Ontario have no connection to us.
Thank you. I will now turn the microphone over to Mr. Al Benoit.