Thank you.
President Chartier of the Métis National Council is not here today. He thanks the committee for having invited him. He's in Santo Domingo where the Organization of American States is considering, and possibly ratifying, a new international indigenous rights instrument.
He did meet with Parliamentary Secretary Lametti on May 30 and we did go through a lot of the issues pertaining to indigenous peoples. We set out our positions on them in a letter to the parliamentary secretary on May 30. That letter is available.
Very briefly, for the Métis nation, the whole issue of free trade is historically rooted and is actually an integral part of their existence because Métis are really children of the fur trade. In fact, historically, the growth of Métis identity on the Prairies was the result of the struggle over free trade with the Hudson's Bay Company.
In fact, this Sunday marks the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Seven Oaks in Winnipeg where the Métis defeated the Selkirk settlers and the armed forces of the Hudson's Bay Company. The issue there was regarding attempts to place restrictions on Métis free trade. Following that battle their struggle against the Hudson's Bay Company continued, culminating in 1849 when Louis Riel's father led a group of armed Métis that forced the courts to release a Métis free trader, William Sayer.
The conflict revolved around the insistence of the Métis to be able to trade freely with the United States. The Métis had their own lawyer in London, Alexander Isbister, who took their case to the British parliamentary committee that was challenging the monopoly, or investigating the monopoly of the Hudson's Bay Company. It's a long-established tradition for the Métis to be very keen on free trade, but again, on terms to protect their national interests.
Today, the issue is looked largely through the prism of jobs. The labour force participation right of Métis is getting quite high. In some cases higher than the national population, but the impact of trade agreements like this on the industries with which their communities are interfacing is critical. The biggest employers, for instance, would probably be Manitoba Hydro, Cameco, the energy companies. The impact of the trade agreement on those companies is critical.
The provisions of the TPP to protect preferential policies such as procurement or the indigenous financial institutions is of critical importance to the Métis nation, because so much of the job creation can be attributed to the efforts of Métis nation capital corporations that have financed a lot of small business that have created a lot of jobs. It would be absolutely imperative to protect that and to protect the preferential procurement policies which have also contributed greatly to job creation and small business development.
As I said, the more detailed positions are set out in the letter to the parliamentary secretary. We'd appreciate any opportunity to continue in these discussions. As a final issue, the national chief said that binational relations with the United States for the Métis nation are critical right now because, in fact, in terms of labour mobility, green card access and the rest, it's actually much worse today than it was 20 years ago. That is a big issue.