Clément Chartier, President, Métis National Council:

Honourable senators, it is a pleasure to be back here. Thank you for inviting me today to mark this one-year anniversary of Canada's apology to the survivors of the Indian residential school system.

I speak here today as the voice of the Métis National Council, the sole and legitimate representative of the Metis nation, whose traditional territory covers the three Prairie provinces and extends into Ontario, British Columbia, the Northwest Territories and the northern United States.

It was my honour to be in the House of Commons one year ago to witness and support the Prime Minister's sincere apology to the survivors of the Indian residential school system and for Canada's past policies of assimilation. When I participated in that apology ceremony, and when I first appeared here before you in the Senate, I pledged the Metis nation was prepared and willing to do our part in Canada's collective journey towards healing and reconciliation. I am still prepared to do that. Our nation is still prepared to do that.

I wish today that I could report on a strong beginning of that journey during the past year, but for most Metis survivors, however, this is simply not true. While the small — and I emphasize ``small'' — number of Metis who attended schools recognized by the Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement are eligible for compensation, the vast — and I say again, the vast — majority of Metis survivors are not.

Thousands of Metis attended church-run, government- sanctioned schools, some of them boarding schools. The intent was the same as those schools covered by the agreement, which was to assimilate Metis.

Metis survivors of these schools endured the same forced separation from family and community, the same attacks on our culture and way of life and, in many instances, were victims of the same physical and sexual abuse.

As I said last year, I am a survivor of the Metis residential school in Ile-a-la Crosse Saskatchewan and I can personally attest to the horrors inflicted on our people. Yet we are denied any compensation, are excluded from the settlement agreement and excluded from the Common Experience Payments. Frankly, I am not even sure why I am here. I am here, I guess, to tell you this, although you already know it.

Why, after a historical and unprecedented outpouring of regret from Canada's leaders, from millions of Canadians, are the Metis left out? The answer to this question is well known to the Metis nation. It has plagued us at every turn for generations, and has continually impeded us securing our rightful place in Canada ever since we first negotiated Manitoba's entry into Confederation. It is the jurisdictional wrangling between the federal and provincial governments.

The boarding schools attended by Metis survivors were for the most part funded by provincial governments or religious orders and were not part of the federally funded Indian residential school system. It is the same way that the Metis people are not eligible for virtually all federal programs. Although the funding was different, the intent of the schools were the same; assimilate the children.

Today, even during this past year, neither the federal nor the provincial governments are willing to accept responsibility for what happened. This impasse over how to deal with Metis survivors personifies, in real human terms, the true cost of Ottawa's persistent refusal to accept the historical, constitutional, and moral responsibility for dealing with the Metis people as a distinct Aboriginal people and nation.

The implications of this abdication of federal responsibility are seen daily in the lives of Metis people. We are denied access to federal Aboriginal education and health care assistance. We are excluded from the federal land claims resolution process, despite having been the victims of a systematic and fraudulent scheme of dispossession and displacement from our traditional land.

We are denied the use of test case funding, which at least provided us a modicum of assistance to pursue the resolution of our historic land claims through the courts. Our Metis nation veterans are denied fair and just compensation. We are currently being told that we will be invited to participate in the hearings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Why would we want to do that? No government has yet stepped forward and accepted responsibility for what was done to us. There has been no apology, whether it is from the government, the churches, or the Pope. There has been no offer of compensation.

Given all this, why would we want to or be expected to participate? Our citizens who suffered the residential schools assimilationist policies and practices believe and feel that they are not inferior beings, and should benefit from the positive developments accorded to other Aboriginal peoples and not just be recipients of the negative policies, harm and dehumanization suffered by all.

The release of the federal stimulus budget on January 27 of this year demonstrated the practical impact of the federal policy of non-recognition of the economic conditions of Metis people. Having met with the Prime Minister twice in January to discuss a Metis nation economic stimulus proposal we have been asked to write, we learned on January 27 that not one cent had been set aside in the budget specifically for the Metis.

On the occasion of the first anniversary of the apology, I call on both chambers of Parliament to take up the call for the federal government to assert its jurisdictional responsibility for dealing with the Metis nation.

As an alternative to costly litigation, the Prime Minister should be asked by you, the Senate, to refer the question of whether the Metis are included in section 91.24 of the Constitution Act, 1867, to the Supreme Court of Canada. This issue was resolved in a like manner for the Inuit in the 1930s, with the Inuit decision of 1939.

The Prime Minister should be asked by your Senate to establish a Metis claims commission with a mandate similar to that of the Indian Claims Commission in order to restore the land base of the Metis nation.

In the interim, the Senate should strike a committee or mandate the Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples to convene a special hearing on the implementation of the federal legislation that led to the dispossession of the Metis from our lands and resources.

Honourable senators, the record of Canada-Metis nation relations during the past year is not all bleak, however. In September of 2008, I signed the Métis Nation Protocol with Minister Chuck Strahl, the Federal Interlocutor for the Metis, committing the federal government and the Métis National Council to work together on a range of bilateral issues. Where appropriate, it allows for multilateral discussions with the five western-most provincial governments.

Minister Strahl has demonstrated a personal commitment to move forward with the leadership of the Metis nation in resolving outstanding moral issues from the past while also pursuing opportunities for social and economic development today. He has committed to doing this on a government-to-government basis. This is indeed encouraging.

The Métis National Council hopes this protocol will enable us to navigate through the jurisdictional quagmire and address the real and immediate needs of Metis people.

One particular area of progress is economic development, where Minister Strahl has opened doors for us. Working with the minister through the protocol and the new framework for Aboriginal economic development, we are aligning our initiatives in business development, community economic development, and employment and training to build a powerful engine for economic growth. Again, this is just in the beginning stages. Hopefully we can report positively on it if we are invited again next year along with the First Nations.

As promising as these initiatives may be, they do not address the long outstanding need for justice for those who feel the effects of dispossession and landlessness in their daily existence, those who experienced the horrors of the Metis residential school system and those brave Metis veterans who sacrificed so much and remain hopeful that they will one day receive the justice that they so very much deserve.

As a leader of the Metis nation, I often ask Metis nation citizens for many things: I ask our elders for their knowledge and advice; I ask our youth for their energy and to dedicate themselves to education; I ask all Metis nation citizens for their support in heart and mind as we work toward the betterment of our people.

However, for our Metis residential school survivors, there is one thing I cannot ask of them any longer: I cannot ask for their patience.

Thank you.

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