Role of Riel examined

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A discussion about Louis Riel and his rightful place in Canadian history was one of the highlights of a three-day conference in Saskatoon in June.

The Indigenous Bar Association of Canada and the University of Saskatchewan's Indigenous Peoples' Justice Initiative jointly sponsored The Metis People in the 21st Century conference from June 18 to 20.

Former Congress of Aboriginal Peoples president Harry Daniels moderated the panel discussion on Riel as hero and symbol in Canada in the 21st century during the first evening of the conference. The panelists were lawyer Jean Teillet, who is Riel's great-grandniece, Metis author and educator Paul Chartrand, Metis Nation of Ontario President Tony Belcourt, University of Toronto criminologist and historian Carolyn Strange and Dominion Institute executive director Rudyard Griffith.

Griffith was on the hot seat because his organization helped produce the dramatized re-trial of Riel that aired on CBC television last year, despite the protests of Metis leaders. Griffith defended the concept of dramatizing the events that led to the execution of the Metis leader as a novel way of proving that Canadian history doesn't have to be dull. But several panelists told him that Riel and his fate are still very much a part of everyday life for Metis people.

"We didn't believe that playing Russian roulette by trying to hang Riel and Metis people again was appropriate," said Belcourt.

He said Metis people are still stigmatized by the execution of their leader as a traitor after the 1885 battle at Batoche. He said the English Protestants that executed Riel still dominate the Ontario establishment and there is tension in the province even today. Belcourt's organization supports the Powley case, a Metis hunting rights case in the Sault Ste. Marie area. A much-anticipated decision on that case is expected from the Supreme Court of Canada in the fall.

"The Ontario position [on Powley] is that Metis communities never existed in Ontario and don't exist today," he explained. "The Metis people feel that prejudice in Ontario, the bigotry, the snide remarks. You cannot raise Louis Riel's name in our province without a profound ripple."

There has been a move by some members of the federal government to pardon Louis Riel and rehabilitate his historical legacy from that of executed traitor to mistreated father of Confederation. But some think the government has got it backwards.

"The only lasting effect from this would be that the government would appear to have pardoned itself. We should be seriously considering pardoning the government," said Teillet.

Chartrand said the government bills are empty symbols.

"To go simpering to Ottawa to ask the descendants of the politicians who dealt unjustly with Riel, it's just not important to me," he said. "If you look at these bills, it's very simple. Not one of them wants to do a damn thing about the cause of the Metis."

Teillet said a lot of injustices have been heaped on her people by successive Canadian governments and a reckoning is required before the parties can move forward.Pardoning Riel would only be a small part of that reckoning.

"I can agree with exoneration, but only if it is part of a meaningful package that comes with it," she said.

She compared the government's idea of pardoning Riel to the former U.S. President Gerald Ford's pardon of Richard Nixon after Nixon was driven from office for illegal acts committed in the Watergate scandal.

"When Ford pardoned Nixon, did it change how you felt about Nixon?" she asked.

Daniels took that analogy one step further.

"The pardoning of Nixon didn't change my idea of Nixon, but it sure changed my idea of Ford," he said.