Canadian Heritage committee  In order to be registered as a citizen, you do have to have a genealogy that provides evidence that you're a descendant of the historic Métis people, Métis nation. You do have to have genealogical evidence, or evidence that you are a descendant of the historic Métis nation. In my

Canadian Heritage committee  I'm not sure where you're getting that from. We've never said that. If you're Métis, you're born Métis, you're always Métis. What we're doing is registering our people. We have registries, so if you want to register as a citizen of the Métis nation, you're free to do that. If yo

Canadian Heritage committee  —indigenous politics for many years, since the 1970s. I've seen the conditions in other countries, particularly South America and Central America, and other parts of the world. When I travel, I'm proud of Canada. There are a lot of things I don't like about Canada. There are a lo

Canadian Heritage committee  But the more that Canada can do the better.

Canadian Heritage committee  Well, the sense of urgency is from the perspective that here's a piece of legislation that's positive. It's urgent only in the sense that it's needed to protect our existence as distinct peoples. That's the only urgency I see. In terms of the mechanics of it, well, that's someth

Canadian Heritage committee  Let me put it this way. The government of the Métis nation has adopted criteria as to who is eligible to be registered as a citizen of the Métis nation, not who is of mixed ancestry—we have no control over that. Pretty well all indigenous peoples in this country are of mixed ance

Canadian Heritage committee  All we can say is who we are. The historic Métis nation, of which you are a descendent, is based in western Canada. We extend into northwestern Ontario, northeast B.C., the Northwest Territories and the northern United States. That's our geographical homeland. We are a distinct p

Canadian Heritage committee  Basically, it's a holistic approach that's needed. This is just one of the pieces. With this current government we've been engaged in the permanent bilateral mechanism which deals primarily with programs and services. In last year's budget we had somewhere around $1.5 billion in

Canadian Heritage committee  No, I would disagree.

Canadian Heritage committee  Thank you. Of course, Georgina, you know very well that La Loche is a Métis community, as is Île-à-la-Crosse.

Canadian Heritage committee  It's just that La Loche happens to be Dene speaking—

Canadian Heritage committee  No, it's not a Dene community; it's a Dene-speaking Métis community.

Canadian Heritage committee  You were once one of us at Île-à-la-Crosse.

Canadian Heritage committee  If you go to Île-à-la-Crosse and tell them they're a Cree community, they'll say, “No, we're a Métis community, but we speak Cree.” They used to speak Michif when I was younger. They spoke Michif in Île-à-la-Crosse. Even in La Loche they spoke Michif at that time, before your tim

Canadian Heritage committee  I would say that my preference would be that the federal government enter into dialogue with the government of the Métis nation, and that we have an allocation for the Michif language, or languages, and that we would ensure then that our governments—in the case of Saskatchewan, t