'An existential threat:' First Nations challenge Ontario Métis self-government deal

First Nations in northeastern Ontario are alleging a lack of consultation and potential violations of their rights as they ask a federal judge to cancel a Métis Nation of Ontario (MNO) self-government agreement signed in February.

"These agreements with the Métis Nation of Ontario have been done in the dark, without the consultation or input with any of the First Nations," said Jason Batise, executive director of the Wabun Tribal Council, whose six member communities are advancing the case.

The Wabun Tribal Council consists of Matachewan, Brunswick House, Chapleau Ojibwe, Flying Post, Mattagami and Beaverhouse First Nations. 

Batise said the First Nations reject the asserted Métis presence in their traditional homeland, a swathe of Treaty 9 territory about the size of France, stretching from the Temiskaming area near the Ontario-Quebec border in the east to Lake Superior in the west.

"For us it's colonization 2.0, overlaying what we feel is a non-existent right to a community that was never there," said Batise, who is a member of Matachewan First Nation.

"It's not right, and that's why we're doing everything we can, including this judicial review, to make sure it doesn't happen."

They applied for judicial review in Federal Court in March, alleging Canada's self-government agreement with MNO recognizes communities that may be unable to pass the Métis rights test established by Canada's Supreme Court.

"This recognition poses an existential threat to the constitutionally protected rights of the First Nations who have used, occupied and stewarded their territory since time immemorial, consistent with their Anishinaabe laws," the court filing says. 

"The minister's decision to enter into the agreement was incorrect and unreasonable."

None of the allegations have been proven in court.

Communities announced in 2017

The Métis are a distinct Indigenous people with a shared culture, traditions and language who emerged in the northwest of what is now Canada in the late 1700s. The existence of Métis communities outside the northwest is contentious.

In 2017, the Ontario government and the MNO announced the identification of six historic Métis communities throughout the province. One of them, the Abitibi Inland Historic Métis Community, is largely within the Wabun council area and thus the main target of the council's ire.

According to Ontario and MNO, this Métis community developed among a scattered series of interconnected trading posts between Moose Factory on the James Bay coast in the north to the Temiskaming region in the south.

The Wabun Tribal Council commissioned its own report in response, delivered in September 2022 by University of Ottawa researcher Darryl Leroux, challenging MNO's conclusions. Batise said the First Nations elders in the region also dispute the claims.

"There were no Métis people in the Abitibi homeland," he said.

"We're just absolutely flabbergasted by that. We don't understand it. We don't accept it."

MNO says deal misunderstood

Margaret Froh, president of the MNO, said she was troubled, surprised and taken aback by the court filing. She said the historical record contains evidence of Métis families and collectives, who are often referred to as "halfbreeds," petitioning for recognition or land and residing in the area.

"There appears to be a misunderstanding and perhaps some misinformation" about what the deal does and doesn't do, Froh said.

The deal recognizes the MNO as the Indigenous government for the Métis communities it represents, and it concerns things like citizenship and governance, she said, not land or harvesting rights as First Nations may fear.

"From where I sit, I think it's offensive that another group would suddenly want to stop us from being able to deal with those internal matters that apply only to our citizens and the communities we represent," she said.

The agreement says that it's not a treaty, but it commits the signatories to signing a self-government treaty that will supersede the agreement in two years.

First Nations and the MNO should be meeting to resolve the issues among themselves through dialogue rather than fighting it out in court, Froh said.

"If our conversation happens only when somebody files an application for judicial review, that doesn't move that conversation forward at all," she said.

"All it really does, frankly speaking, is make lawyers rich." 

Batise said he doesn't see much to discuss.

"We have no axe to grind with what we would consider legitimate Métis claims — the Red River settlements and places where they were and they can prove they had substantial and distinct communities," he said.

"Our issue is there are none in Ontario. There are none especially in the spaces that we occupy as our traditional land."

CBC News contacted the office of the Crown-Indigenous Relations minister with an interview request on Friday but he was not made available. A departmental spokesperson said it would be inappropriate to comment on active litigation. 

CBC News then submitted written questions which the department declined to answer, saying only that it's reviewing the case to determine its next steps.