Written for Daily Hive by Stephen Mussell, an Indigenous rights lawyer, father, partner, and citizen of the Manitoba Métis Federation.
Colette Trudeau, CEO of Métis Nation British Columbia (MNBC), recently wrote to express her opinion that the rights of Métis are not being respected or upheld in British Columbia (BC). Left unsaid by CEO Trudeau is that in advocating for the recognition of our rights in BC, Métis organizations (including MNBC) have generally done an excellent job of offending and inflaming tensions with our First Nations hosts through their ignorant assertions and disrespectful actions. The question of the existence of Métis rights in BC is fraught and highly nuanced, and it must begin with doing the work necessary to know ourselves.
Two truths are fundamental to this discussion.
The first is that the Métis Nation is an Indigenous people, but we are not Indigenous to BC west of the Rocky Mountains. Save for those few Métis who have been accepted into First Nations in BC through marriage, adoption, or some other valid legal, social, or political means, Métis in BC are settlers, even if their families, like my own, have resided in BC for multiple generations.
The second is that First Nations in BC are the proper inherent and constitutional rights holders within their territories. They have applied and exercised their inherent laws, legal systems, systems of governance, and jurisdictions throughout the entirety of their territories prior to contact and continue to apply and exercise them throughout the entirety of their territories today.
These truths significantly complicate the broad and often self-serving rights assertions that MNBC, the BC Métis Federation, and other Métis organizations regularly make in BC. Not all Indigenous rights are the same, and the extent to which they can be validly exercised depends on the context.
As described in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), certain Indigenous rights are held by peoples (the collective), some are held by individuals, and others are held by both. Some rights are clearly connected to the land, water, and air (such as Indigenous peoples’ right to the lands, territories, and resources they have traditionally owned, occupied, or otherwise used or acquired), whereas others are not (such as the right of Indigenous individuals to receive an education in their own culture provided in their language).
Where an Indigenous people relocates from its homelands and settles on the lands and territories of other Indigenous peoples (as Métis have in BC), the extent to which they may validly exercise their rights is necessarily and greatly curtailed. Rights cannot be taken in isolation. They must be considered in the broader context of UNDRIP and the specific real-world context in which those rights are asserted.
For Métis, this is supported by our own history and law.
Métis history within our Homeland is one of alliances, trade arrangements, treaties, and intermarriage with First Nations. Indeed, the diplomatic relations forged between Métis and our Cree, Saulteaux, and Assiniboine relatives were such that open conflict rarely occurred, and we often joined together to protect our shared interests. The complex network of legal, political, and social relationships that resulted led to close alliances between Métis and First Nations peoples, which functioned as a means of sharing land and resources between extended Métis and First Nations family networks. Over hundreds of years and through these various legal, political, and social means, our Métis ancestors legitimized and solidified our rights and presence on the prairies.
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Vitally, this process never occurred in BC.
What this means for those Métis rights that are clearly connected to the land, water, and air (such as the right to harvest) is clear: absent agreement with First Nations in BC, they do not exist. To date, Métis organizations have not entered the legal, political, and social relationships with First Nations necessary for Métis to validly exercise these contingent rights in BC. While some argue that decisions of colonial courts, such as the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision in R v. Powley, may suggest otherwise, in my opinion, the 20-year-old Powley decision itself is inconsistent with UNDRIP and Métis organizations’ use of Powley to assert their rights in the territories of First Nations in BC can be fairly characterized as Métis colonialism.
What this means for those rights that are not so clearly connected to the land, water, or air is more nuanced. When such a right is asserted in the territory of another Indigenous people, its realization cannot impede or infringe the same right held by that people. This means, for example, that Michif language programs (the language of the Métis) cannot be prioritized over nsyilxcən language programs (the language of the Syilx people of the Okanagan Nation) within Syilx territory.
Similarly, as an aspect of the right to self-determination, Indigenous peoples have the right to autonomy and self-government in matters relating to their internal and local affairs. Looked at in the context of BC, the extent to which Métis can validly exercise our collective right to self-government on the lands of other Indigenous peoples is an open question – how can an Indigenous people validly govern in and over lands that are not its own? At the very least, it seems obvious that such rights must be limited to only those matters that are purely internal and do not impede or infringe upon the rights held by the Indigenous peoples on whose lands we have settled.
Consistent with our law and absent other agreement Métis deference to First Nations in BC in this regard should be the norm, never the exception.
Such conclusions are not unreasonable or tied to misconceptions about identity and are most certainly not racist. They also do not create a “hierarchy of rights,” as is often asserted by Métis organizations, and in no way deprive us of pride or dignity. In speaking with many other Métis lawyers, academics, artists, and knowledge keepers, I believe the perspective put forward here is far more common among our people in BC than Métis organizations would have us believe. This makes good sense; as outlined above, it is a perspective that is in line with our history and laws as a distinct Indigenous people. No amount of revisionism, self-pity, or sensationalism will change that.
Like all Indigenous peoples, we must have our rights respected and realized. However, this work must be done with humility and in a manner that respects and upholds not only the laws, legal systems, systems of governance, and jurisdictions of our First Nations hosts, but our own as well. The first step is to begin knowing ourselves.
Stephen Mussell is an Indigenous rights lawyer, father, partner, citizen of the Manitoba Métis Federation, and was, until recently moving to Treaty 4 and the Métis Homeland, a member of the Métis Nation British Columbia. Among others, his mother Constance Mussell’s (née Waldo) family is descended from the Brown, Whitford, Price, Spence, and Cook families, and his father Michael Mussell’s family is descended from the Klyne, LaFrance, Cyr, and Nolin families.