Letter to the Editor: An open letter to the 44th Parliament of Canada re: Bill C-53

December 14, 2023

Before voting on Bill C-53, An Act respecting the recognition of certain Métis governments, and to give effect to treaties with those governments and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, please read these directly relevant reports submitted by 27 affected First Nations:

This Parliament will soon be asked to vote on Bill C-53, which could profoundly and irrevocably erode the section 35 Indigenous rights of all federally-recognized First Nations in Ontario. Affected First Nations have commissioned the above research reports that cast significant doubt on the historical justification for the bill. We, the undersigned, as topic specialists with current knowledge of academic evidentiary standards, find these reports to be compelling and substantial. We call on all members of Parliament to thoroughly familiarize themselves with these reports before voting on Bill C-53 or abstain from voting.

For elected members of Parliament to vote on the proposed legislation without first reading the submissions of affected First Nations that have identified this legislation as a matter of the greatest importance and concern, would be an expression of colonial arrogance of an order unseen in Canada since the nineteenth century.

Stated baldly, the central issue of dispute over Bill C-53 is that a corporation calling itself “The Métis Nation of Ontario” claims to be representing members of six long ignored historical Métis communities in what is now known as Ontario and is asking the Government of Canada to recognize them as constituent parts of a self-governing Nation or polity with section 35 Indigenous rights and standing to negotiate modern treaties.

On the contrary, First Nations in Ontario, supported by the Assembly of First Nations, and the Manitoba Métis Federation, claim that these Métis communities are a fiction and have offered substantial evidence that Métis Nations never existed in their traditional territories. According to the affected First Nations, the majority of the membership of the self-proclaimed Métis Nation of Ontario are either distant relatives of existing First Nations, or Canadians of European descent.

This dispute is not a matter of semantics or theory, it is a matter of simple historical fact: either some or all of these communities existed, or they did not. If they did not, the Government of Canada should not extend self-governing authority to them. The facts of this case are not lost in the mists of time, but discoverable through standard historical research; research that has been done and provided to the Government of Canada and is hyperlinked above. It is the contention of the First Nations in Ontario that the interpretation of evidence provided by the Métis Nation of Ontario in support of the existence of the six Ontario Métis communities, evidence long in government hands and reviewable by concerned members of Parliament, is so irregular as to be unrecognizable as any known historical practice and does not prove the existence of any historic Métis Nations in Ontario.

Given the potential of this legislation, if based on factual errors, to:

  • Undermine eight years of nation-wide efforts to repair relations between Canada and First Nations arising from the Truth and Reconciliation Report
  • Violate Canada’s legally binding commitments made in the Treaty of Niagara and Upper Canada treaties
  • Bring the 44th Parliament of Canada into disrepute by granting self-governing authority to a nation or nations that do not exist

We call on all sitting members of Parliament, from every party, to familiarize themselves with the Ontario First Nations’ objections to Bill C-53 or abstain from voting on the bill.

Sincerely,

Catherine Murton Stoehr, Ph.D. History, Queen’s University, Independent Scholar
Veldon Coburn, Ph.D. Political Studies, Queen’s University, Associate Professor McGill University, Faculty Chair – Indigenous Relations Initiative
Nathan Kozuskanich, Ph.D. History, Ohio State University, Professor and Chair Department of History, Nipissing University
Carly Dokis, Ph.D. Anthropology, University of Alberta, Associate Professor Nipissing University