Ottawa Report

Page 3

The federal government and the Metis of Manitoba slugged it out in a Winnipeg courtroom again recently. They rehashed a 100-year old argument that may open the way to the settlement of Metis land claims throughout the West. The Metis are trying to prove that they are entitled to more than a million acres of land in southern Manitoba. The federal government said, in its defence, that too much time has passed and too many things have happened to do anything about the Metis claim.

The origins of the court case go back 117 years. At that time, Manitoba was set to enter Confederation. The leader of the provisional government then was Louis Riel. In 1870, Parliament passed The Manitoba Act, making it the fifth province of Canada. A year later, The Manitoba Act became part of Canada's constitution when it was also approved by the British Parliament.

The Act says, among other things, that the children of Metis families are entitled to 1.4 million acres of land. After it became a province, however, the federal and provincial governments passed more than a dozen laws that made it almost impossible for the Metis to get their land. Within a few yeas, the 1.4 million acres was all gone ? most of it given away to white settlers. (By the way, 1.4 million acres is an area the size of Prince Edward Island. Another way of putting it is to imagine all the land within the city limits of Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg, Regina, Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver. Now, think of all that land in all those cities ? and double it ? that's how much land the Metis are owed under The Manitoba Act.)

Once the land was gone, the federal government tried to put an end to the issue. In 1886, the year after it hanged Louis Riel, the federal government passed a law saying the land provisions of The Manitoba Act had expired.

Now, 101 years later, the Metis have gone to court to get their land. When the two sides went to court in January, the federal government tried to get the case thrown out. The government argued that the Metis land claim is a dead issue because it was settled a century ago. The government also argued that the Metis of today have no business in court because The Manitoba Act only granted land to the children of Metis families of a hundred years ago.

The Manitoba Metis Federation naturally disagreed with the federal arguments. As the descendants of the Red River Metis, they said they have an obvious right to take the issue to court. They also said the land issue was never settled by a federal law in 1886. What's more, they said a federal law cannot overrule The Manitoba Act because the Act is part of Canada's constitution.

In February, a Manitoba court ruled in favor of the Metis and cleared the way for the full land claim to go to trial. But the case won't be going to trial, at least not yet, because the federal government appealed the ruling. So the latest court fight in the Manitoba Court of Appeal just repeated the previous arguments.

The appeal took just two days to hear but it's not known how long it will take the court to make a decision. What is known is that the longer the federal government drags this case out and the more legal tricks it uses to fight the Metis to the bitter end, the worse the government looks. That's because Brian Mulroney is already on record as being in favor of a land base for the Metis. (Remember his statement at the 1985 First Ministers' Conference?)

This case is also making the province extremely uncomfortable. Howard Pawley's NDP government has been the strongest supporter of the Native cause at the last two constitutional conferences. Manitoba is not involved in the present appeal, but it will be forced to take sides if it ever gets to trial. Despite its strong pro-Native reputation, the province will fight the Metis in court.

After a hundred years, the Metis are ready for the fight. They've hired Thomas Berger ? The Thomas Berger ? to argue their case. He says the egal record will prove that the Metis were cheated. He calls the Metis land claim "the unfinished business of Canadian history." If he wins the case, he says it will pave the way for the settlement of Metis claims throughout western Canada, in the same way that the Supreme Court ruling in the Nishga case forced the Trudeau government to begin Indian land claims negotiations in 1973. (By the way, the lawyer in the Nishga case was ? you guessed it ? Thomas Berger.)

The last word on the subject of the Manitoba Metis land claim goes to the man who tried to create a Metis land base in the first place, Louis Riel. At his trial for treason in 1885, Riel said: "There were two societies who treated together. One was small, but in its smallness had its rights. The other was great, but in its greatness had no greater rights than the rights of the small, because the rights is the same for everyone."