Mtis Nation of Ontario accuses Manitoba leaders of hypocrisy, politicking on identity issue

Ontario Mtis leaders deny identity theft allegations made attheIndigenous Identity Fraud Summit in Winnipeg last week, accusing opponentsof politicizing Mtis identity, flip-flopping on past positions and circulatingfalsehoods.

During the two-day meeting, delegates from co-host organizations Manitoba Mtis Federation (MMF)and Chiefs of Ontariocalled the Mtis Nation of Ontario (MNO) race shifters who lack connection to the historic Mtis Nation of the Prairies.

Mitch Case, regional councillor for the MNO's Huron-Superior Regional Mtis Community, says that allegation is nonsensical and easily disproved.

"It's based on the Manitoba Mtis Federation's political goals of being the only Mtis government in Canada, which is not in any way historically accurate," Case said.

Case called the summit a "hate rally" in a Facebook post, and told CBC Indigenous he feels that way because it was based on "nonsense."

The MMFbroke from the Mtis National Council in 2021 followingyears of factionalism and turmoil fuelled largely but not solely by controversy over six disputed MNO communities.

MNO and the Ontario government jointly recognized the communities as historic in 2017, stretching the asserted homeland of the Mtis Nation as far east as the Ontario-Quebec border.

MMF President David Chartrand described the influx as an "eastern invasion" that threatens to swamp the Mtis Nation from within something he told attendees last week was Louis Riel's greatest fear.

In response, Casepointed to the Supreme Court of Canada's historic 2003 Powley ruling, which affirmed Mtis hunting rights in and around his home community of Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., about 1,000 kilometres east of Winnipeg.

Chartrand and the MMF had no issue withMtis rights in Ontario when Steve and Roddy Powley, who sparked the case when they shot a bull moose in 1993, wereasserting those rights in court, Case said.

Founding president defends MNO

Tony Belcourt is Mtis from Manito Sahkahigan, or Lac Ste. Anne, Alta., and the founding president of both the MNO in the 1990s and the Native Council of Canada (now the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples) in 1971.

There's no discounting facts like the recognition of the historic Mtis community in Sault Ste. Marie, Belcourtsaid.

"It caused me a lot of emotional stress and pain to listen to what was going on," Belcourt said.

"It was very hurtful to see our people being subject to such hate and racial discrimination."

Belcourt wrote a Facebook post on May 15 calling the summit a "misguided stunt" that exposes all Mtis to suspicion, ridicule and hate.

"This is a very slippery slope. This has potential to elevate the dangers of violence that MMIWG2Sare already experiencing," he wrote.

Asked to elaborate on the comment, Belcourt said he feels the attacks on MNO give licence to those who harbour racial hatred against Mtis and First Nations people in general.

"The repercussions of all of this are very serious. It's affecting the well-being and the lives of our children," he said.

At a newsconference after the summit, when askedto respond toallegations of misinformation and harm, Chartrand and others rejected them.

Chartrand said "the first reaction we will see from those that are trying to steal our identity is to first become a victim," before issuing his opponents a challenge.

"Show me I'm wrong. Show me I'm not not telling the truth," he said.

"And they can't do that because they caught themselves in a corner as race shifters and identity thieves."

Comment 'awfully rich': MNO leader

Margaret Froh, president of MNO, said the language at the summit was "incredibly offensive" and thatshe waskeento try and prove Chartrand wrong but wasn't invited to speak.

"I think it's awfully rich for David Chartrand to be saying, 'tell me I'm wrong, show me I'm wrong,' and at the same time denying us the opportunity to do just that," she said.

Froh took also exception to Nipissing First Nation Chief Scott McLeod saying people in Ontario have been misledby their leaders all their lives into thinking they're Mtis.

"It's beyond gaslighting: It's abusive and it's having an impact on the mental health of our people," she said.

MNO launched the Ontario Mtis Facts website in response, highlighting the Powley case and the histories of the six disputed communities. According to Belcourt, MMF's concerns are invalid and no one is being misled.

"Our communities in Ontario emerged in the same way and at the same time as they did in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta back in the 1700s and 1800s," he said.

Belcourt and Froh said it's not for MMF to unilaterally decide whether the Mtis Nation homeland encompasses the Ontario communities in the province's eastern reaches.

MNO tasked an expert panelin 2021 to review the six communities, plus the court affirmed seventh in Sault Ste. Marie, through the lens of the Mtis National Council's official citizenship definition.

A report is scheduled for August 2024.