Metis veterans ready to do battle over compensation

Page 4

While many Canadian veterans took time on Aug. 19 to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Dieppe Raid, Canada's surviving Metis veterans had begun the latest battle in their ongoing fight for compensation.

The Metis veterans-some in their 70s, some in their 80s and 90s-are ready to do battle with the federal government in an attempt to win for themselves the compensation they feel they were cheated out of when they returned home from war so many years ago.

The situation for Metis veterans was very much the same as that faced by First Nations veterans when they returned from war -benefits provided to non-Aboriginal veterans were not made available to their Aboriginal compatriots.

"It was for a variety of administrative reasons, we could see how, during the 50s, when these programs were being administered, that the majority of Metis veterans couldn't have and did not know that these programs even existed," explained Bruce Flamont, president of the National Metis Veterans Association. Chief among those reasons was that the Metis veterans on average had a grade level less than Grade 3, while the programs were designed so that someone would have to have a much higher grade level to be able to participate. Another was that the federal government used radio, television and newspapers to inform veterans about the benefits programs, media that did not reach into many of Canada's remote Metis communities.

"Why did they design programs that would exclude Metis veterans? Did they believe that it was in Canada's interest? Did they do it out of ignorance? Was it done out of malice? Or was it done, as a lot of people suspect, because we were different, because we were not white?" Flamont said.

Even if they did somehow find out about the programs for compensation, Metis veterans were often dissuaded from taking part, Flamont explained.

"Some of our people, they'd ask for assistance to begin a farm, they'd say, 'No, no, no, you've never been a farmer, so therefore you can't participate in the farming program.' And they'd have education programs and our people would go and ask for the education program, and they'd say 'Oh, no, no, you need to have Grade 8 to participate.' And our guys couldn't read or write, they just wanted to be able to read or write when they came back," he said.

The Metis veterans' fight for compensation is a battle that will be fought on many fronts- in the courts; overseas with efforts to gain support from countries that benefited from the wartime efforts of Canadian troops, including Metis soldiers; and here at home, through attempts to win the hearts of Canadians with accounts of how the Metis men who put their lives on the line for Canada were treated when they returned from war.

The battle will also be fought on a political level, said David Chartrand, president of the Manitoba Metis Federation, and the Metis Nation of Canada (MNC) minister responsible for Metis Veterans.

"I think you're going to start seeing some serious political action happening throughout our country, the homeland of the Metis especially in Western Canada," Chartrand said. "I've heard from veterans. I've had veterans in my office here, talking to me about landing in Normandy, and seeing their colleagues and other Metis soldiers fall and being shot to pieces, and a lot of them lived in prison camps and didn't know if they would live or die each day . . . and to find out that they made it to come back and to be treated in this fashion. They didn't even know that there was a process being established by Canada in the 1950s to deal with this process. And a lot of them weren't well equipped in education, so they didn't realize that they could advocate for themselves on these programs, or didn't even know the process of accessing.

While, or course, the Department of Veterans Affairs is saying completely different, that the programs were available for everybody, why didn't they apply, blah, blah, blah, and the list goes on.

o I think we're going to be looking at that. We've got the national president to write a letter to the Prime Minister, so that's going out, asking him to intervene on this matter, that his minister has definitely missed the boat, and clearly has taken a position that, I assure (Veterans Affairs Minister) Mr. Pagtakhan it's not the position of Canadian citizens in this country to treat their veterans in that fashion," Chartrand said.

"So this campaign is just beginning, and I think you're going to see some great action, some strong action, by the politicians, the Metis people themselves, and I think you're going to see it from the veterans. But you're also going to see it from Canadian citizens as a whole, once they realize what Canada's done."

While the MNC works to develop and implement its strategy on the political battlefield, the battle in the courts has already begun, explained Flamont.

"We initiated a class action suit against the federal government on behalf of all Metis veterans and/or their descendants," he said, adding that the suits were launched in both federal court and in the Court of Queen's Bench as a way to circumvent one of the government's usual stalling tactics.

"Either court can hear the case," Flamont explained. "It's usually a strategy of the government when they're not co-operating to insist that, for example, if you go to the federal court they'll tell you, no you have to go through Queen's Bench and vice versa. So what we've done is to eliminate that, tabled it in both, and we're in the process now of determining which court will actually hear the case."

The decision to try to settle the issue of compensation for Metis veterans through the courts was made because of the unwillingness of Veterans Affairs to resolve the issue through negotiations, Flamont said.

"The doors between the Department of Veterans Affairs, their officials and Metis veterans, I was going to say closed, because they are closed, but it suggests that at one pointthey were open, and they never were. That's part of our case, in that Metis were not recognized as Metis when they signed up, even though they were recruited specifically because they were Metis and the special talents that they were able to bring to the fronts. And so when the policies and the programs of rehabilitation were being developed by the federal government -on behalf of what we're saying, European veterans, white veterans-those programs and those processes excluded Metis veterans. That happened in the 50s and as of today, as we speak, we have not yet had the opportunity to meet with any Department of Veteran Affairs ministry, although we've been asking for meetings with them. So quite simply the doors are closed with DVA, but not only are they closed, but they have never been open," he said.

While the Metis veterans are ready to have the compensation issue resolved in the courts, "that does not suggest that we are not wanting to negotiate," Flamont said. "Because on the other hand, you have to understand that, although we are suing the federal government which represents Canada, we believe very strongly that we are Canada, and that this nation is our nation. And that was the reason that we went out to defend ourselves and to defend our land, and what we thought and continue to think is our land, and is our country. So on one hand we're suing the federal government, which purports to represent Canada, but it's with a bit of trepidation, because in a sense it could be argued that we're suing ourselves."

While the court cases have been launched, the Metis veterans have not yet come up with any specific dollar figures for the compensation they are seeking.

"We haven't come to any numbers yet. We're still trying to open the doors, even to talk about that, and that hasn't been available to us," Flamont said. "But having said that, I want to be able to say that we expect nothing less than what was available and offered to white veterans. And so whatever the got, we should be able to get, this is what we're saying."

The veterans' association is also working to determine just how many Metis veterans there are that would qualify for any package that may be awarded, with initial estimates suggesting there could be 6,000 or more Metis veterans to be compensated.