Ontario angers Riel family member

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The great-grand niece of the Metis people's greatest leader publicly chastised a representative of the government of Ontario during a ceremony on Nov. 16 commemorating the achievements of Louis Riel.

Jean Teillet, renowned Aboriginal lawyer, declared the MPP for Dufferin-Peel's comments "shockingly inappropriate."

David Tilson, speaking for provincial Minister of Native Affairs, James M. Flaherty, to a crowd of about 100 people gathered at the Northwest Rebellion monument, mentioned Riel not once in what has been described as an embarrassing sales pitch for the governing provincial party. Tilson ran through the list of government activities and the mandate of the Ontario agenda, "the results of Ontario's investments," and the benefits of his party before abandoning the microphone to Teillet.

"I don't think a gathering in Riel's honor is an appropriate place to put forward the party's platform," she said, "particularly a governing provincial party with a record on Aboriginal affairs as sullied as that of the Harris government."

Teillet said "It was a very sad day for the Riel family on this day in 1885. It was on this day that we lost our best and brightest son." Louis Riel was hanged for his part in the Metis resistance to Prime Minister John A. MacDonald's plans to open the west to European settlement. Riel felt he had to take a stand against the government and fight for the land and communities the Metis had developed in what is now modern-day Saskatchewan, after his people had been run out of Manitoba by the government earlier that century.

The gathering place for the commemoration was an appropriate backdrop for a few words about the resistance. The Northwest Rebellion monument is dedicated to the Ontario soldiers who fought the Metis at Batoche 115 years ago, and was erected by the province of Ontario in 1935 to celebrate the battle's 50th anniversary and the defeat of the half breeds.

"Riel was truly a democrat at a time when democracy was not fully developed in Canada," said NDP leader Howard Hampton. "I think that if Riel was alive today that he would be honored as a true democrat.

"If you were excluded from a land base, you were excluded from the economy and wider society as a whole. Riel fought for this in his time, for the rights of all people to participate in society," explained Hampton.

The Riel commemoration began at Toronto's City Hall with Metis community members raising the distinctive Metis Nation flag.

The group made its way to the monument on the legislature grounds where Metis Nation of Ontario President Tony Belcourt addressed the crowd. Belcourt spoke about Louis Riel, the man, his mission and the people who were left behind after his tragic death.

"There is no figure in the history of this nation who stands out more than Louis Riel," said Belcourt, who spoke of the greatness of Riel's humanitarianism and his contributions to the Dominion of Canada as a nation builder rather than as the traitor history has painted him.