Writer lauds Expositor scribe Tom Sasvari for balanced May 17 article
To the Expositor:
Would like to honour Tom Sasvari for his balanced May 17 article, “Huron-Robinson chiefs demand Canada not recognize Ontario Metis as a ‘nation’.” To be clear of my bias, I was born in the Metis community of Sault Ste. Marie and am a member of the Metis Nation of Ontario. So, kudos to Mitch Case, the Metis Nation of Ontario Regional Councillor of the Huron Superior Regional Metis Community for standing up in this dispute. My father, his father and grandfather were fluent in four languages: French, English, Gaelic and Anishinaabemowin. None of my father’s family ever received Indigenous status because of their being rejected by their previously inclusive Anishinaabek relatives. It was in fact the Federal Conservative Prime Minister John A. Macdonald’s Indian Act of 1876 that did not recognize Metis and Innu, as his priority was the genocide and assimilation of Indigenous peoples.
The notion of “Blood Quantum” was government policy designed to lower the numbers of recognized First Nations peoples. The concern by Ontario Regional Chief Glen Hare and others about the recent recognition of Metis and Innu as First Nations peoples is short-sighted. The real issue relates to the years of tedious negotiation with the federal government over increasing the $4 per person annuity, owed to members of the 21 bands covered by the Huron-Robinson Treaty of 1850. Though the government recognizes in principle the notion of making fair restitution, of course the devil is in the details and exactly how many billions have been made from resource development over the past 170 years. Why now would the Metis become the enemy?
It is the feds colonial policy, still alive and well, that is the problem and will continue to be so as long as the Indian Act is still on the books. For starters, embracing mixed-blood peoples, rather than sneering at them as “wannabes” only increases the numbers of status First Nations. How much Indian blood is required to be a real Indian? Indigenous identity is really about embracing the spiritual connection to the land. Sadly, language is not connected with that, as too many status First Nations no longer are fluent in their mother tongue, or even identify as bonded with their Indigenous soul.
All this dance by the government is primarily designed to obscure John A. Macdonald’s big lie. His government’s purchase in 1869 of the charter of the Hudson’s Bay Company did not justify claiming the land that drained into the Hudson Bay. This was called “Rupert’s Land” named after its first governor, Prince Rupert, appointed by King Charles II. Truth is the charter only recognized the right to trade with its native inhabitants. Buying this charter for $1.5 million certainly did not give Canada (Upper and Lower Canada and parts of the Maritimes at that time) all rights to claim all the land west to the Pacific, north to the Arctic and east to the Atlantic Oceans. What we are really talking about is a dishonest and disguised use of the 1493 Roman Catholic Church’s Doctrine of Discovery.
Derek Stephen McPhail
Mindemoya
