cover image: Powley, Rights Recognition, and the Rise of “Métis Denialism”: A Response to First Nations’ Calls for Accountability

Powley, Rights Recognition, and the Rise of “Métis Denialism”: A Response to First Nations’ Calls for Accountability

7 Dec 2023

centred, and inherently colonial approach Simultaneously, Ontario First Nations and their supporters employed to achieve these ends has ensured gathered on the steps of Parliament1 in opposition to Bill that future generations of Métis will be C-53, An Act Respecting the Recognition of Certain Métis burdened with the task of undoing the harm Governments in Alberta, Ontario and Saskatchewan, that h. [...] “lateral violence.”3 Section 35 recognizes and arms the “existing aboriginal As evidenced by the tumult surrounding the introduction and treaty rights of the [A]boriginal peoples of Canada,” of Bill C-53, in the 20 years since it was decided, Powley being “the Indian, Inuit, and Métis.” rough Powley, the has paradoxically played an outsized role in the progressive Court established the test for ho. [...] According to the Court, the Powleys had met the Court’s test — soon to be known Rather, Powley enables a Métis right to be established absent as the Powley Test — and had proved that, as Métis, they any consideration of the legal, political, and social context had a right to hunt for food in the area of Sault Ste. [...] “rights-bearing communities” by employing tactics such as simple assertion, the misrepresentation of unreliable census e Sources of Métis Rights data and historical accounts, the co-opting of cultural markers, and the pointing to of contemporary association as From the moment it was decided, enterprising leadership evidence of historic community. [...] Consultation guidelines were In my view, the Powley decision is also inconsistent with draed, and broad harvesting laws and policies were put the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous in place (including with respect to the territories of First Peoples, as its application has led to the complete neglect Nations in British Columbia and Ontario that fall outside and undermining of I.

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Canada