A year after landmark ruling, Métis, non-status Indians chart way forward

Métis and non-status Indigenous people from across Canada are in Ottawa this week for a symposium on how to proceed following a landmark Supreme Court of Canada ruling last year.

In April 2016, Canada's highest court ruled that the federal government had jurisdiction over Métis people and Indigenous people without Indian status, meaning the government also has the same responsibility to them as it does to status Indians and Inuit.

• Unanimous ruling says Ottawa has jurisdiction over all indigenous people

• What a landmark ruling means — and doesn't — for Métis, non-status Indians

Historically, status Indians were registered on an official list maintained by the federal government. They qualified for certain rights and payments not available to other Canadians, depending on the terms of applicable treaties.

Under this system, non-status Indians and Métis were either never registered or were considered ineligible to register by federal officials. 

The 2016 Supreme Court ruling changed all that, at least theoretically.

But little has happened in the intervening months, so a two-day gathering called the Daniels Symposium — named after Métis leader Harry Daniels, who started the landmark rights case in 1999 — aims to identify a unified way forward for the people affected.

"I know that there's a lot of questions, and lot of people don't understand the case and what it means," said Daniels's son Gabriel Daniels on CBC Radio's Ottawa Morning on Tuesday. "And I know if he was here, he would be taking us in the direction that we need to be going."

Harry Daniels died in 2004, before he could see the case come to a conclusion and impact some 200,000 Métis and 400,000 non-status Indigenous people.

The hope is that last year's unanimous ruling can serve now as a starting point for those pursuing land claims and additional government services including health care and education.

'It's going to be a long road'

But apart from establishing a legal framework, lawyer Lanise Hayes believes nothing has changed since the ruling.

"It's going to be a long road," Hayes said on Ottawa Morning.

She said she hopes the two days of discussions and meetings will result first in some kind of consensus on how to identify non-status and Métis people in Canada based on both objective and subjective criteria. 

"Once we can come up with some consensus on identity, I hope that we can come up with a plan moving forward on what does this mean?" she added.

"Now that we have identity, what kinds of rights come from this? And what types of services are governments able offer, and work together in offering?"

Daniels wants community members, grassroots leaders, legal experts, and politicians who are in Ottawa for the symposium to find common ground to chart a course ahead.

"I want to see more unity amongst all Aboriginal people, and I would like to see five organizations working together more than they have. And I would want to see our leaders negotiating for land, and not being focused on money."