The Dangerous Absurdity of Canada’s “Nation-to-Nation” Treaty with Manitoba Métis Federation Inc.

Don’t miss the piece on the other side of the paywall written by learned legal expert and outstanding wordsmith Peter Best about the spurious ethnic group called “Métis” who were wrongly included in Canada’s 1982 Constitution as “aboriginal peoples.”

As the editor of Best’s terrific essay wrote:

[S]ome members complained that they’d been handed an “empty box” [in the Constitution] compared to the ample rights and treaties offered to Indian and Inuit people. Since then, however, Canada’s court system has been hard at work filling up that box. Now, with the signing of a “nation-to-nation” treaty late last year, Manitoba Métis have a box that’s positively overflowing with new rights, powers and federal cash. Peter Best explores how Canada came to recognize a fractious, landless, fully-assimilated, colonial-era group — a group that is actually represented by a corporation — as a nation with an inherent right to self-government, as well as the deeply problematic consequences of this decision.

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I urge you also to read or re-read Best’s remarkable piece, The Aryan Blood/Race Myths Underlying the Aboriginal Separatist Movement, published here on December 29 and referenced below. It skillfully documents the larger racialized context this piece about the Métis needs to be grounded in.