Opinion: Is It time to review Métis Nation of Ontario Relationship Agreements?

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Things have been said that cannot be unsaid:

• “The Chiefs of Ontario do not recognize the MNO [Métis Nation of Ontario] as a legitimate organization.”

• “The MNO so-called Métis ‘communities’ and ‘territories’ simply and clearly do not exist in Eastern Ontario,” statement by the Manitoba Métis Federation.

• “The MNO is, and always has been, a corporate organization that seeks to appropriate First Nations’ identities, territories and rights to benefit the members of its organization,” excerpt from joint letter from 13 duly elected southern Ontario Chiefs.

These are a few of many statements now in the public record asserting that the corporation that calls itself the “Métis Nation of Ontario” (hereafter the “MNO”) does not have authority to speak or negotiate on behalf of Métis people living in what is now called Ontario.

This very public challenge poses a serious problem for the hundreds of mining companies, political bodies, community groups, government ministries, universities, school boards, and more who have negotiated and signed binding agreements with the MNO in the 31 years since its incorporation – agreements that transfer millions of dollars of taxpayer and industry money to the MNO each year.

Critics of the MNO have raised two issues.

• First, critics have produced mountains of evidence, corroborated over the years by the MNO itself, that a large percentage of so-called “citizens” of the MNO are neither Métis nor Indigenous; and yet the MNO distributes funding and rights meant for Métis people to their non-Indigenous members.

• Second, the MNO claims that there are six historic Métis communities in Ontario and that MNO members who live in those areas have the right to be consulted over developments in them, critics say that those communities never existed.

Anishinabek Nation Lake Huron Regional Chief Scott McLeod, a key leader in the recent successful resistance to a federal bill that would have recognized the MNO as a government, said that in 2004, Ontario First Nations and the MNO signed an agreement promising to respect each others’ rights and aspirations, “little did we know that those aspirations were to occupy our territories!”

Sam Restoule, who works on the issue for Chiefs of Ontario, said that the 2004 protocol required annual meetings, which never did happen. In 2010, the Chiefs of Ontario rescinded the agreement. Regional Chief McLeod recalled: “There was a lag period before communities started to take notice. At first, [MNO statements and actions] were looked on with an eye roll, they were wannabees, an annoyance. That grew into a realization they weren’t going anywhere, and they were only getting stronger politically. Then we started to worry about what was happening in our Nations, saying, ‘What’s going on here? They’re shrinking our pie of Crown obligations.’ Then we asked where did they come from? Why aren’t they in our history?”

That’s when Ontario First Nations started organizing in earnest. Sam Restoule said that in 2011, the Chiefs of Ontario passed a resolution that government and industry should not consult the MNO on energy projects or resource revenue sharing.

The Chiefs of Ontario resolution didn’t dissuade the MNO from pursuing diplomatic agreements, memorandum of understanding, and impact benefit agreements with governments, educational institutions, and industry, notably including mining, nuclear waste storage, and power generation.

According to the MNO website, Ontario and the MNO signed a “Harvesting Agreement” in 2014 that identified 12 MNO harvesting areas in the province. Those areas completely overlap existing First Nation hunting territories, but those First Nations were not involved in the agreement. Under the terms of the “Harvesting Agreement”, Ontario gave the MNO authority to issue 1,250 “Harvester Cards” to be distributed at their own discretion. In 2017, Ontario lifted the cap on the number of Harvester Cards.

Notably, Canada has always decided which Indigenous people have the right to hunt through the Indian Act, so the MNO’s achievement of self-determination in this area was historically unprecedented and gave its members much more robust Indigenous hunting rights than were then or are now possessed by any other Indigenous groups in Canada.

In the following years, Ontario tasked the MNO with determining geographic areas where members of their organization had rights in Ontario. The MNO hired private research companies to look into the matter and based on their findings, asserted that there were six “historic Métis communities” in Ontario. The six new communities’ territories again overlapped with existing Ontario First Nations’ land. Ontario officially recognized those Métis communities in 2017.

Not a single Ontario First Nation, not even those whose territory were directly affected, was involved in the research or negotiations that led to the 2017 recognition of the six Ontario Métis communities. In the past few years, the methodology and conclusions of those historical research companies have been called into question by peer reviews initiated, paid for and provided to federal and provincial governments by Ontario First Nations.


Read More (There is a lot more information on the website)
https://anishinabeknews.ca/2024/09/30/o ... greements/