The Métis Nation of Ontario (MNO) is an organization for people who self-identify as

Métis The Métis ( ; Canadian ) are Indigenous peoples of the Americas, Indigenous peoples who inhabit Canada's three Canadian Prairies, Prairie Provinces, as well as parts of British Columbia, the Northwest Territories, and the Northern United State ...

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...

. It consists of representatives at the provincial and local levels.

History of mixed Indigenous and European people in Ontario

Mixed Indigenous-European populations have existed in Ontario since the arrival of

fur traders The fur trade is a worldwide industry dealing in the acquisition and sale of animal fur. Since the establishment of a world fur market in the early modern period, furs of boreal, polar and cold temperate mammalian animals have been the most ...

into the northwestern

Great Lakes The Great Lakes, also called the Great Lakes of North America, are a series of large interconnected freshwater lakes in the mid-east region of North America that connect to the Atlantic Ocean via the Saint Lawrence River. There are five lakes ...

and

northeastern Ontario Northeastern Ontario is a secondary region of Northern Ontario in the Canadian province of Ontario, which lies north of Lake Huron and east of Lake Superior. Northeastern Ontario consists of the districts of Algoma, Sudbury, Cochrane, Timiskami ...

in the 1600s. The two major fur trading companies, the

Hudson's Bay Company The Hudson's Bay Company (HBC; french: Compagnie de la Baie d'Hudson) is a Canadian retail business group. A fur trading business for much of its existence, HBC now owns and operates retail stores in Canada. The company's namesake business di ...

and the

North West Company The North West Company was a fur trading business headquartered in Montreal from 1779 to 1821. It competed with increasing success against the Hudson's Bay Company in what is present-day Western Canada and Northwestern Ontario. With great weal ...

, both banned employees from having relationships with Indigenous women, but that did not stop some of the men from doing so. While many Métis were of French descent, according to Campbell, there was a significant

Anglo-Métis A 19th century community of the Métis people of Canada, the Anglo-Métis, more commonly known as Countryborn, were children of fur traders; they typically had Scots (Orcadian, mainland Scottish), or English fathers and Aboriginal mothers.B ...

population around the Great Lakes and

James Bay James Bay (french: Baie James; cr, ᐐᓂᐯᒄ, Wînipekw, dirty water) is a large body of water located on the southern end of Hudson Bay in Canada. Both bodies of water extend from the Arctic Ocean, of which James Bay is the southernmost p ...

areas, who were the result of marriages ''à la façon du pays'' between Indigenous women and English or Scottish fur traders and British soldiers. Peterson writes that there were mixed populations that started to live around forts run by these companies, particularly around places such as Sault Ste. Marie,Peterson, J. (1985). "Many roads to Red River: Metis genesis in the Great Lakes region, 1680–1815." In Peterson, J. & Brown, J. (eds) ''The New Peoples: Being and Becoming Metis in North America'' (pp. 37-71). Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press. near the present U.S.-Canada border, and along

in communities that today are known as

Moosonee Moosonee () is a town in northern Ontario, Canada, on the Moose River approximately south of James Bay. It is considered to be "the Gateway to the Arctic" and has Ontario's only saltwater port. Nearby on Moose Factory Island is the community of ...

and

Moose Factory Moose Factory is a community in the Cochrane District, Ontario, Canada. It is located on Moose Factory Island, near the mouth of the Moose River, which is at the southern end of James Bay. It was the first English-speaking settlement in lands no ...

.Long, J. (1985). "Treaty No. 9 and Fur Trade Company Families: Northeastern Ontario's Halfbreeds, Indians, Petitioners, and Métis." In Peterson, J. & Brown, J. (eds.) ''The New Peoples: Being and Becoming Metis in North America'' (pp. 137–62). Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press. Andersen, Chartrand and Reimer posit that the Métis community in Red River could possibly be descended from this group.Andersen, C. (2001). "Moya 'Tipimsook ("The People Who Aren't Their Own Bosses"): Racialization and the Misrecognition of "Metis" in Upper Great Lakes Ethnohistory." ''Ethnohistory'', 58. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1215/00141801-2010-063. However, most products of these unions "either integrated into Indigenous communities or assimilated with European newcomers, unlike the distinct Metis People of Louis Riel in Western Canada" who developed a particular, unique culture. Whether or not these people in Ontario self-identified as Métis at the time is a matter of serious dispute. The recent rise in self-identified Métis in Ontario both challenges the common narrative that the Métis community developed solely in the Red River area, as well as raises concerns for many about the issue of settler self-indigenization. It has been argued by scholars and elders of recognized Indigenous communities in the region that calling this community "Métis" is an act of settler self-indigenization, as "people of mixed blood in the region either integrated into Indigenous communities or assimilated with European newcomers, unlike the distinct Metis People of Louis Riel in Western Canada" and that "there was no such thing as a Metis community here in this region." Andersen writes that to call these people "Métis" is an inappropriate "racialization" - placing an inaccurate, colonial label based on "misrecognition" of perceived or imagined racial differences, rather than on actual socio-cultural attributes.

History of the MNO

The Métis Nation of Ontario was formed in 1993, along with associations in other provinces and territories, to provide a political platform for those who identify as Métis in Ontario. This was first tested in 2003 in the '' R. vs. Powley (2003)''

Supreme Court of Canada The Supreme Court of Canada (SCC; french: Cour suprême du Canada, CSC) is the Supreme court, highest court in the Court system of Canada, judicial system of Canada. It comprises List of Justices of the Supreme Court of Canada, nine justices, wh ...

ruling that recognized the Métis as

Indigenous people Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...

with rights to hunt and fish in accordance with their traditional lifestyles and developed a test of Métis identity now known as the "Powley test". This contrasted with a definition developed by the MNO which focuses on self-identification as Métis, having at least one Indigenous grandparent, and whose application was accepted by the MNO.Reimer, G., & Chartrand, J. (2004). Documenting Historic Metis in Ontario. ''Ethnohistory,'' ''51''(3), 567-607.

Structure

The MNO governance structure is set up in a style similar to a democratically elected,

provincial government A state government is the government that controls a subdivision of a country in a federal form of government, which shares political power with the federal or national government. A state government may have some level of political autonomy, ...

. The Community Councils serve as the main connection point between MNO citizens and the provincial leadership. Assistance and resources are provided by the MNO to the Community Councils to carry out their mandates and making sure they are managed well. Each Community Council also has a seat for a Youth representative that works with the Métis Nation of Ontario Youth Council and stands for Métis youth in the region. Ontario Métis Community Councils map

The provincial leadership takes the form of the Provisional Council of the Métis Nation of Ontario (PCMNO), which is accountable to MNO citizens at their Annual General Assemblies. It deals with issues and decisions that affect the Métis as a whole throughout Ontario. The PCMNO has an Executive section with five members, nine councilors for the different regions of Ontario, representatives for the youth and university-age segments of the populations, and four senators. The current president is Margaret Froh, who is the first female president of the MNO. A lawyer by training, she has worked previously in Indigenous law and in administration and policy at the MNO.

Concerns about meeting Métis criteria

At the 2018 Annual General Meeting of the

Métis National Council The Métis National Council (french: Ralliement national des Métis) is the representative body of the Métis people of northwestern Canada. The MNC represents the Métis Nation both nationally and internationally, receiving direction from the ele ...

(MNC), National Council vice-president David Chartrand expressed concerns about how the Ontario Métis organization defines people as Métis. The MNC suspended the Ontario body's membership in the governance institutions of the Métis Nation. The National Council also raised concerns that 90% of the purported Métis who have registered with the Ontario group did not fulfill the requirements of citizenship put in place by the Council in 2002, notably the requirement for an ancestral link to the Métis homelands and the Red River area specifically. If they want to end the suspension, the Métis National Council resolved that the MNO must implement a stricter definition of Métis status. In response to the Council's resolution, MNO Vice President France Picotte said that she didn't care about the ruling because, "

he Council He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' ...

has no authority over us." During the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

, the MNO received a $205,000 grant from the

Public Health Agency of Canada The Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC; french: Agence de la santé publique du Canada, ASPC) is an agency of the Government of Canada that is responsible for public health, emergency preparedness and response, and infectious and chronic dis ...

's Immunization Partnership Fund to increase uptake of COVID-19 vaccines among Métis citizens in Ontario.

References

{{Authority control Political organizations based in Canada Métis in Ontario Indigenous organizations in Canada Métis organizations Indigenous organizations in Ontario