F.Y.I. Found posted on another list. *************************** http://www.metisduquebec.ca/index2.htm A PUBLIC MESSAGE OF INTEREST TO THE MÉTIS Identify yourself as Métis and register with a Métis Community before the signing of treaties with Indian bands The Corporation métisse du Québec et de l'Est du Canada (The Métis Corporation of Québec and Eastern Canada) is strongly counseling all Métis to register, as quickly as possible, with a Métis Community which will reclaim in their name the respect of their rights before the governments and courts because if they (the Métis) do not carry this out, they will never be able to exercise them (rights). In 1982, Canada recognized the ancestral and territorial rights of Indian, Métis and Inuit people in Article 35 of the Canadian Charter on Rights and Liberties. The federal and provincial governments then refused to recognize the rights of the Métis in Ontario, in Québec and in the Atlantic Provinces, under the pretext that there were Métis only in western Canada. This is false, stated the Supreme Court of Canada. The Métis exist in the East of the country. In the Powley judgment of 2003, the Supreme Court of Canada recognized the rights of yearly hunting for subsistence of the 900 members of a Métis community at Sault Sainte-Marie, in Ontario. The Court specified that the Métis must satisfy three conditions in order to be recognized one day as titulars (owners) of Métis rights: La Cour a précisé que les Métis doivent satisfaire à trois conditions pour être un jour reconnus titulaires de droits métis : 1. They must self-identify as Métis. 2. They must demonstrate ancestral links with Natives and Non-natives. 3. They must be members of a Métis Community. The court has also underlied that they must identify self as Métis and register with a Métis Community before the recognition of their rights and not afterwards, in order not to be identified as opportunists and not fulfill the first condition. Consequently, the Métis of Ontario, Québec and the Atlantic Provinces must register, as quickly as possible, with a Métis Community which will reclaim in their name the recognition of their rights before the governments and the courts. On the other hand, in a second historical judgment, the Delgamuukw lawsuit, rendered in 1997 in British Columbia, the Supreme Court informed the Indian bands and the Métis communities to reclaim their territorial rights before the signing of treaties, because these rights have an exclusive character. This indicates that the Métis who will not join a Métis community reclaiming their territorial rights in their name on the Côte Nord (North Coast), Saguenay, and Lac Saint-Jean (St-John Lake) will not be able to reclaim them (their rights) once the treaty is signed between the governments and the Indian Innus bands. Conequently, the Corporation is strongly counselling all Métis of Eastern Canada to register as quickly as possible with a Métis community which will reclaim in their name the respect of the their rights before the governments and the courts. The Métis Corporation of Québec and Eastern Canada and the Métis Community of Eastern Canada convened in 2003 to form a coalition in order to defend the rights of their members before the governments and the courts. They are actually assisting one of their members to defend his territorial right in the suit of the Town of Pohénégamook vs. Robert Oakes, in the Québec Court, in the Palace of Justice of Rivière-du-Loup. If Mr. Oakes wins the suit, Québec and the municipaties will no longer be able to tax the property of the members of the Community on their ancestral territory. Beyond the right of not paying taxes without consultation at the beginning, it is the right of the Métis for liberty and that of not be held without right that the coaliton is defending. The Corporation and the Community are inviting all Métis communities existing in Eastern Canada to join the coalition. They invite also all the Métis who do not belong to a community and who have personal knowlege of their origin to register with the Community by declaring on honor to be Métis. The cost is 10$ per year. The Community issues a membership card in order to attend meetings. (refer to: What the Rights conferred by the Community ID Card?) The Community and the Corporation will help them as a result to demonstrate their ancestral links. In every case, they must register with the Corporation in order to participate in the Métis defense fund before the courts. Cost: 100$ for three years. The Corporation will also file in court in the name of its members lawsuits of thousands of dollars for the illegal expropriation of Métis territory in 1850. JOIN THE COALITION BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE