Métis Identity Crisis: Inside the MNC–MMF Battle Over Ontario Registries and Bill C-53
A definitive 2018-2025 timeline of registry audits, court battles, expert panels, and Ottawa’s stalled Bill C-53—events that splintered Métis leadership from Red River to Ontario.
The question “Who exactly speaks for the Métis Nation?” remains the central—and still unresolved—issue of 2025.
This article talks about the “before” and “after” bookends—from the 2002 definition of what it means to be Métis that everyone invokes, through the registry crackdown (2023) and prairie walk-outs (2021 & 2024), to today’s stalled legislation.
My goal is to make one thing quite clear: the fight is no longer the definition of Métis itself—it’s who meets it.
For ordinary Métis citizens: which card, registry or government will be recognized for health, education and child-welfare programs? Federal and provincial departments need a clear answer; right now they don’t have one.
So, who decides?
And while the adults debate their maps, motions and million-dollar lawsuits into a stalemate, Métis teenagers graduate without clarity on whose history they should memorize, which scholarship form they should tick, or which government will still exist when their own children are born.
If the nation can’t close its identity files, the files will close the nation—one lost youth opportunity at a time.
The future of Métis self-government will not be measured in court pages but in whether today’s children grow up certain, proud, and served. That is the only audit that matters now.
The Before
Some people may be reading this and wondering how the Métis political issues began. The best thing to do is to take this way back to the beginning of these organizations.
As you know, our ancestors, the Métis, are a distinct Indigenous people who emerged two-plus centuries ago from fur-trade families in what is now central Canada.
By the 1920s-1960s, the Prairie Métis had built provincial lobby groups to press governments for the land, hunting rights and social services that they had been promised.
Métis Nation of Alberta (MNA) founded in 1928
Manitoba Métis Federation (MMF) incorporated in 1967
Métis Nation–Saskatchewan (MN-S) adopted a modern constitution in 1993
Frustrated that pan-Indigenous bodies lumped them in with other groups, the Prairie organizations came together on 8 March 1983 in Regina to found the Métis National Council (MNC).
The MNC’s job: speak for the “Métis Nation” in constitutional talks and federal negotiations.
In the 1990s, two newer governments joined: Métis Nation of Ontario (MNO, 1994) and Métis Nation British Columbia (MNBC, roots 1996).
Through the 1980s the MNC was a Prairie-centred alliance (Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta). By the mid-1990s its leaders wanted a truly “coast-to-coast” mandate before jumping back into constitutional talks and coordinated test-case litigation. Inviting Ontario and then British Columbia was therefore framed as both a show of national unity and a strategic boost for upcoming rights battles.
Great, so everyone was happy? More or less.
When the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples publicly recognized “distinct Métis communities of Ontario” in 1996, no MNC leader objected at the time, signalling broad acceptance of the new partner.
Delegates spoke of finally stretching the “Métis Nation Homeland” from Lake Superior to the Rockies; press releases called it “historic.”
Yet, behind the applause, Prairie presidents added one caveat: Ontario would only register citizens who traced back to the traditional Homeland in north-western Ontario or the Prairies.
And for BC, proceedings were celebratory—speakers called it “a very significant day” and talked about carrying Red River’s legacy to the Pacific.
There was scarcely any recorded dissent, partly because BC’s entry didn’t raise the same homeland-boundary questions that dogged Ontario.
So, MNBC completed the “sea-to-sea” map, useful in national lobbying: federal officials could now see Métis governments covering five provinces and 80 % of the population that identified as Métis in the census.
The years of 1994-1996 felt like a “big-tent” moment: one big happy family.
Prairie governments saw allies rather than rivals, Ontario and BC gained national legitimacy, and everyone talked about pushing Métis rights “lake to ocean.”
The applause was genuine, but it came with an unspoken handshake—stick to the shared ancestry rules—which later became the fault-line when those rules were tested.
A National Definition of “Métis”
After a decade of workshops and drafts, the five governing members of the Métis National Council—MMF, MN-S, MNA, MNBC, and MNO—met in General Assembly and unanimously adopted the “National Definition of Métis.”
Métis: a person who (1) self-identifies as Métis, (2) is distinct from other Aboriginal peoples, (3) has historic Métis-Nation ancestry, and (4) is accepted by the Métis Nation.
Historic Métis Nation: the Aboriginal people called Métis or Half-Breeds who lived in the Historic Métis Nation Homeland—west-central North America.
Métis Nation: the descendants of that Historic Métis Nation, recognized as one of the Aboriginal peoples of Canada under s. 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982.
Assembly minutes and every later summary repeat the word “unanimous.” Years of pre-meeting discussion meant the wording was effectively settled before it reached the floor, and each province had signalled support. Between 2002 and 2004 every governing member wrote the same definition into its bylaws (e.g., the MNA’s 2003 AGM package).
Outside the council, the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples and several Atlantic/Acadian “Eastern Métis” groups were not eligible to vote and soon criticized the Homeland clause for excluding their communities—a dispute that still echoes in today’s debates.
The MMF’s observed boundaries of the Métis Homeland.
Powley seals the 2002 Métis Consensus in Constitutional Law
Perhaps the most important legal decision for the Métis people in Canada—on 19 September 2003, the Supreme Court of Canada decided R. v. Powley, 2003 SCC 43. This case threw out moose-hunting charges against Steve and Roddy Powley and, in doing so, set:
the “Powley Test” for Métis rights:
Self-identification as Métis (not of “recent vintage”),
Ancestral connection to a historic Métis community, and
Community acceptance by the contemporary rights-bearing Métis community.
Those indicia sit inside a broader test that also asks for evidence of a historic community, continuity between past and present, and an integral cultural practice—modified from Van der Peet to fit the Métis “post-contact but pre-control” reality.
This is first case to recognize that s. 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982 protects distinct Métis Aboriginal rights.
So, the MNC’s definition—adopted one year earlier in 2002, unanimously, by all five governing members—already contained the same three identity pillars that the Supreme Court would crystallize in Powley.
The decision therefore validated the political consensus the Métis governments had reached in 2002 and supplied it with constitutional weight.
Turning recognition into practice (2004-13)
After R v. Powley, the government was seized with turning legal recognition into practice for Métis people. Several examples include:
2004 – Ontario harvesting deal: Using the Powley test, Ontario signed an interim agreement that let the Métis Nation of Ontario (MNO) issue harvester cards the province would honour—the first rights agreement of its kind.
2008 – Métis Nation Protocol: Ottawa and the MNC set up a bilateral table on governance, lands and economic development, anchoring regular federal-Métis negotiations.
2009 – R. v. Goodon: A Manitoba judge applied Powley on the Prairies, confirming Red River Métis hunting rights at Turtle Mountain.
2013 – MMF v. Canada: The Supreme Court ruled Ottawa had failed to honour the 1870 land-grant promise to Red River children, giving the Métis historic-rights discourse new momentum.
Source: Métis Crossing, MNA, Historic Indigenous Territories
And another federal-jurisdiction breakthrough for Métis people
On 14 April 2016, the Supreme Court decided another very important case for Metis people—Daniels v. Canada.
In this case, the Supreme Court determined that Métis (and non-status Indians) fall under federal jurisdiction in s. 91(24) of the Constitution. This closed any doubt about Ottawa’s duty to negotiate directly with Métis governments—and set the legal stage for later self-government deals.
For the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples (CAP), National Chief Dwight Dorey was reportedly “five feet off the ground,” calling it a win for 600 000 Métis and non-status people left in “a jurisdictional wasteland.”
And the MNC saw this as a chance to press Ottawa for self-government tables—but was becoming quietly worried the ruling might embolden groups with looser identity standards (e.g., CAP affiliates).
Daniels: responses to this ruling were cautious.
Nova Scotia, for example, issued an FAQ stressing that Powley still governs harvesting rights and that no new benefits flowed automatically. Provinces feared Ottawa might download costs or that self-identified Métis would assert new resource rights.
And this shows what is a core concern of Métis citizenship: fair resource allocation.
Given that Métis people had previously been promised land and resources—and that was taken away—could we fault them for focusing on fair resource allocation?
Margaret Froh, MNO President
2017 Flashpoint: The Controversial Move That Re-Ignited the Métis Identity Debate
MNC, MNA & MNO’s observed boundaries of the Metis Homeland.
In 2017 the MNO and the Province of Ontario jointly announced six additional historic Métis communities — Mattawa/Ottawa River, Georgian Bay, Killarney, Abitibi Inland, Rainy River/Lake of the Woods, and Northern Lake Superior — beyond the lone Sault-Ste-Marie community validated in R. v. Powley.
But, hadn’t the boundaries of historic Metis communities already been decided?
Prairie-based Métis governments (Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta) argued that these areas lay outside the agreed upon “Historic Métis Nation Homeland” envisioned when the five governments accepted the 2002 National Definition. They warned that Ontario’s broader map could weaken the legal and political case for Red River–centred rights.
At successive MNC board meetings the Prairie presidents accused the MNO of “grandfathering in non-Métis citizens” and ignoring earlier MNC resolutions that barred new registrations lacking a homeland link. The MMF remained concerned that allowing folks to gain citizenship and become “rights-bearing” where they had no rights would dilute the land and resources available to the real Métis people.
MNC President Clément Chartier was instructed to investigate; his 80-page report — Addressing the Integrity of the Historic Métis Homeland — was tabled on 28 Nov 2018 at the MNC General Assembly.
Chartier saw issues and recommended suspension from the group table unless the MNO cleaned up its registry.
During that MNC General Assembly, delegates of provincial Métis governments debated two linked motions:
Adopt an official Métis Nation Homeland map that stopped at Lake Superior (per MMF).
Place the MNO on one-year probation while an independent review tested its registry against the 2002 National Definition.
So, the probation motion won 29 – 24 — a narrow, highly charged result that split the room almost down the middle.
With that, the MNC under Chartier put MNO on one-year probation over its registry, ordering a community review of who exactly was being given cards as rights-bearing Métis people who had rights to land and resources.
What MNO’s “probation” actually required (per MNC)
The formal resolution set out tough conditions:
Freeze questionable files and show that all citizens meet the 2002 self-ID + ancestry + community-acceptance test.
Audit 1 000 sample files, with genealogies tracing each citizen to the historic homeland.
Rescind the six contested communities unless the audit proved their legitimacy.
And MNO’s reaction? Well, President Margaret Froh called the report “rushed and riddled with errors,” pointing out that the MNO had received it only the day before the vote.
She insisted the decision had “no impact on MNO citizenship or harvesting rights.”
An MNO press release called the underlying report “misinformation” and stresses that all citizens meet the 2002 definition
Yet, MMF and others said probation was necessary to protect the integrity of the nation’s citizenship rules and keep Section 35 rights from being diluted.
MMF & MN-S newsletter says the two cabinets had reached a “unanimous decision … to support the suspension” if Ontario failed to comply.
The probation decision formalized the first major crack in what had been a five-government coalition: it pitted a rapidly growing Ontario registry — buoyed by Daniels-era talks with Ottawa — against Prairie leaders determined to hold on Prairie-central homeland boundaries.
Despite the probation, business continued as usual for MNO. The MNO continued representing its citizens and discussing the rights and futures of Ontario Métis with the federal government.
On June 27 2019, Ottawa signed tri-council self-government agreements with MNO, MNA & MN-S—first ever for Métis governments.
First-ever Métis self-government agreements with the feds. Really cannot underscore the importance of that enough.
So, how did MMF react to all of this?
Just a few months later, in Sept 2019, MMF AGM passes a resolution telling President David Chartrand to withdraw from the MNC if the MNO keeps its seat. MNO notes the resolution and “disparages” claims of registry inflation.
David Chartrand, MMF President
Clement Chartier, 2003-2021 MNC President (previously MN-S)
But the MNO insisted they had complied and things were fine.
A month later, in Oct 2019, MNO completed its own expert review instead of the external audit demanded by the MNC and reported that the file sample meets Powley standards.
This MNO update calls MMF allegations “inaccuracies,” insists registry QA will be ongoing.
Did the MNO’s in-house 2019 audit really meet Powley standards, or was an external audit indispensable?
This is the core factual clash between Prairie critics and the four-government bloc.
Of course, the story doesn’t end there. The MNC does not accept MNO’s audit. And things get worse between MMF-MNC-MNO.
On 20 Jan 2020, MNC President Clément Chartier sent a letter unilaterally declaring the MNO suspended for not meeting probation terms. No General Assembly is held. Chartier calls eastern-Ontario Métis claims “a new invasion.”
The MNO fired back: you can’t suspend us. Or more specifically—MNC bylaws give no authority for a presidential suspension and vows to keep its federal tables open.
During 21-22 Jan 2020, a tri-council summit (with MNO, MNA, MN-S) in Ottawa branded the MNC “dysfunctional and unaccountable,” pointing out the council had not held a board meeting in 14 months, and vowed to deal with the federal government directly to represent Métis people.
This removes the role and the need for the MNC.
CityNews quotes MNA’s Audrey Poitras: “Absolutely don’t accept that Ontario has been suspended.”
MMF President Chartrand replies the real issue is protecting the Métis nation from “potentially millions” of new claimants. Unclear how this estimate was determined.
Cassidy Caron, 2021-present MNC President
MNO suspended: coalition of the willing strikes back
In Spring 2021, four provincial Métis governments — MNO, MNA, MN-S, and MNBC — file three linked applications in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice. They asked the Court to declare MNC Clément Chartier’s 2020 “suspension” of the MNO unlawful and to compel the MNC to hold the General Assembly and presidential election that had been stalled since 2018.
Was Clément Chartier’s January 2020 suspension of the MNO lawful or ultra vires? The Ontario court said “ultra vires,” yet MMF still cites that letter as proof of MNO non-compliance.
On 20 July 2021 (Toronto): At a full-day hearing the Court signalled it agreed with the applicants: the MNO had never actually been suspended and the MNC’s governing members were entitled to a properly convened Assembly. A few days later, the MNO published the judge’s oral direction. The Court “supported the MNO in its positions” and told all Board members to arrange a “Special Sitting of the General Assembly … including the long-overdue election of a new MNC President.”
The parties signed a Consent Order fixing the meeting for 29-30 September 2021 in Saskatoon.
Because if they could just sit down and discuss in person then things could be okay.
When everything hit a(nother) boiling point
The resulting Assembly on 29 September 2021 did three things in 24 hours:
1. MMF dropped the mic and walked out of the MNC;
2. Delegates re-confirmed the MNO’s membership;
3. Cassidy Caron became the first woman elected MNC president, promising a “new era” of accountability.
Let’s break that down
When MMF President David Chartrand walked out of the MNC, he then delivered a press statement announcing the MMF’s formal withdrawal from the MNC “effective immediately.”
MMF accused the Council of “abandoning the true Métis Nation” by continuing to seat the Métis Nation of Ontario (MNO) despite registry concerns.
MMF’s Chartrand called Ontario’s standards an “eastern invasion.”
MNO President Margaret Froh replied she was “disappointed, but not surprised.”
This moment ended a 38-year membership and ensured Manitoba (about one-third of Métis population) was absent for the rest of the meeting, leaving four Métis governments in the room.
Later that day, the MNC reconfirmed the MNO as a full Governing Member. Also, a motion to as passed that voided MNC Chartier’s 2020 “suspension” letter and affirmed the MNO’s voting status. They also struck an Expert Panel to study Ontario’s disputed communities.
Motion adopted by consensus of the four governments present.
This put to rest (for the four signatories) the question of Ontario’s seat and set up a technical process—rather than presidential fiat—to scrutinize registry files.
Cassidy Caron was then elected MNC President. Note that this was the first competitive vote since 2003; Caron (29) of Métis Nation B.C. won on the first ballot (MMF had no candidate). Became the first woman and the first B.C. citizen elected MNC president. In her victory speech she promised “a new era of transparency and accountability.”
“I am grateful for this opportunity to serve the Métis Nation … we will create unity across the Métis Homeland.” — Caron
This marked a generational and geographic shift in leadership and signalled the four-government bloc’s intent to reboot the MNC without Manitoba at the table.
However, attention pivoted once again as on 30 Sept 2021, MMF President Chartrand issued a four-page “exit explainer,” telling citizens the MMF had “formally withdrawn” and henceforth:
And what did MMF want? Well, the next day MMF said that they will act as the “national government of the Red River Métis.”
National. Government. Metis. Let that sink in.
Soon after, MMF branding, websites and news releases re-labelled themselves “Red River Métis Government.”
So, in 2021, MMF is claiming to be the national government of the Red River Métis and the MNC is reestablishing itself as the national voice of the Métis.
This is when we saw newly elected President Cassidy Caron schedule five Board-of-Governors meetings in six weeks—the first since 2018—to prove the council could still function. Caron reopened the dormant bilateral table with Ottawa and met nine federal ministers, telling media she was “repairing years of dysfunction.”
And now the fight goes to court: who was in the wrong? MMF? MNC?
On Jan 27 2022, The MNC filed a 48-page Statement of Claim in Ontario Superior Court seeking $15 million from former president Clément Chartier, Chartrand and the MMF for an alleged “scheme to injure MNC” and divert veterans’ funds.
Accusations of ‘schemes’
MNC statement of claim: says defendants ran a “Scheme … to intentionally cause severe financial harm … and denude MNC of its status” by diverting ≈ $9 million in Métis Veterans funds, the national archival database and other assets just before MMF quit the council.
MMF blasted a looming lawsuit as “weaponizing the courts” to mask MNC weakness
Did Chartier, Chartrand and the MMF really run a “scheme” to strip MNC assets—or is the lawsuit political theatre? The pending Ontario judgment will either validate the conspiracy claim or expose overreach.
On May 4 2022, MMF & Chartrand file a 45-page Statement of Defence. They call the action “meritless political revenge,” deny any misuse of money, and say the veterans program was properly assigned to MMF after Ottawa “lost confidence” in the MNC. And MMF repeats claim that “90 % of MNO’s registry fails the national definition.”
So… did the MNC allege a MMF conspiracy?
Absolutely. Paragraphs 2–7 of the January 2022 Statement of Claim spell it out:
“Chartier, Chartrand and MMF unlawfully conspired to injure MNC … to give MMF paramount status to represent the Métis Nation.”
The pleading labels that plan a “Scheme” and “scorched-earth policy,” asserting it involved:
• moving $9 million in Veterans Legacy Program funds to MMF;
• assigning the national Métis archival database to MMF for “nominal or no consideration”;
• signing hefty severance and consultancy payouts on the way out.
MMF rejected every allegation
(And the decision has not been published as of July 2025)
But the conspiracy narrative is MNC’s own language, not an embellishment.
Cassidy Caron used the lawsuit to brand a “clean-up era,” holding regular Board meetings and finishing the independent Expert Panel on Ontario communities in 2025.
Meanwhile, MMF doubled-down on its Red River Métis identity, negotiated directly with Ottawa, and called the trial proof the MNC is “Prairieless.”
For the people? Well, Métis social media remains sharply split—one side sees a needed house-cleaning, the other sees a Prairie homeland under legal attack.
Since January 2022, the lawsuit has been the gravitational centre of Métis-Nation politics.
The MNC’s own pleadings do allege a deliberate conspiracy by MMF leaders to wrest assets and cripple the council. A nine-week trial wrapped this spring; everyone now waits for the judge’s written decision to see whose story sticks.
While the lawsuit percolates, the MNO has a Special Assembly on 17 June 2023 to tighten the registry
After years of criticism that thousands of citizenship files lacked the genealogical proof required by the 2002 National Definition and the Powley test.
To proceed, Ontario law and the MNO’s own bylaws required a province-wide plebiscite followed by a Special Assembly with a single-purpose vote.
Ballots were mailed to 28 000 registered citizens; 8 270 voted.
71 % (≈ 5 900 voters) favoured by-law changes that would let the MNO remove citizens whose files were incomplete.
Media reported that about 5 400 files were “missing or incomplete documentation.”
As a result, they passed Special Resolution #SGA230617-01 which did three things:
1. Amended the MNO Bylaws and the detailed MNO Registry Policy to give the Registrar the power to strike a citizen if their file fails today’s proof standards.
2. Adopted a 12-page Citizen Removal & Appeals Policy, setting timelines (30 days’ notice, 60 days to appeal, independent panel review).
3. Added a housekeeping edit to Bylaw Article 51.
MNO called it “the largest integrity measure in our 30-year history,” saying it finally aligned every file with the three Powley identity pillars. An official explainer stressed that no one loses citizenship automatically: each file is reviewed, a notice is issued, and an appeal is available.
Insiders dubbed it “the purge tool”. It is the first by-law framework that allows outright deletion of non-compliant citizens; previous rules only “froze” files.
Internal guidance anticipated thousands of reviews over 2023-26, prioritizing files tied to the seven disputed communities.
Critics in Manitoba and Saskatchewan immediately called it “cosmetic,” arguing that proof rules are still looser than those used in the Prairie homeland.
And then the federal government tabled Bill C-53: self-governance for Indigenous people
When the federal government tabled Bill C-53 on 21 June 2023, it billed the measure as a modest housekeeping step: Parliament would simply give statutory effect to the 2019 and 2023 self-government agreements it had already signed with the MNA, MN-S and MNO, and create a framework for future “treaty-style” accords dealing only with each government’s internal matters—citizenship, elections and administration.
The autumn hearings quickly revealed how combustible that “modest” bill really was. Chiefs of Ontario opened the proceedings by urging MPs to withdraw C-53 until an independent review settled long-running doubts about the MNO’s citizenship registry and its seven disputed historic communities; they called the draft statute a “dangerous precedent” that could legitimize false identity claims.
A week later, witnesses from Alberta’s Métis Settlements warned that the text would let the MNA speak for communities that had never ceded their own rights. At meeting 85 on 22 November the Assembly of First Nations’ interim National Chief described the bill as “a step backwards for reconciliation,” arguing that Canada had failed to obtain the free, prior and informed consent required by UNDRIP.
Supporters pushed back just as forcefully. Presidents from the three Métis signatory governments told the committee the bill merely enshrined agreements already co-developed with Canada and had nothing to do with land or harvesting rights. The Crown-Indigenous Relations minister repeated that line, insisting C-53 concerned “internal governance only.”
Meanwhile, MNO promoted citizen testimonials defending the bill and pleaded for “swift passage.”
By early December 2023 the committee had finished hearing witnesses but never reached clause-by-clause review.
Opposition MPs and First-Nations leaders demanded more consultation; government members sensed the bill no longer enjoyed a cross-caucus path to the finish line.
The file went quiet through 2024—until 9 December 2024, when the minister bluntly told MPs that Bill C-53 “will not move forward in its current form.”
That ministerial admission effectively froze C-53.
As of July 2025 the bill still sits on the committee’s agenda, untouched; reviving it would require starting again at first reading in a new session.
Bill C-53 became a lightning-rod for every unresolved question about Métis identity and jurisdiction.
To supporters, it was the logical legal next step after the Daniels decision and more than two decades of negotiations; to opponents—including the MMF, Alberta’s land-based Métis Settlements, and numerous First Nations—it looked like Ottawa was fast-tracking recognition for governments whose registries or mandates remained contested.
The government’s decision to shelve the bill leaves self-government recognition stranded in political agreements rather than statute and confirms that Canada cannot legislate its way through the Métis identity debate without first reconciling the competing visions inside the wider Indigenous world.
So, 2024: a year of rapid-fire plot twists for Métis politics in Canada
Here’s what happened in 2024:
Supreme Court backs Bill C-92 in full re An Act respecting First Nations, Inuit and Métis Children, Youth and Families (2024 SCC 5). This affirmed that federal jurisdiction extends to Métis self-government in this domain. Métis leaders across the spectrum hailed the ruling as a constitutional green-light—even the MMF, now outside the MNC.
MN-S pulled its support for Bill C-53. In a press release and council motion, MN-S said Ottawa’s “one-size-fits-all” bill was holding back its own treaty-based talks and formally “withdrew its support for Bill C-53.
MNC Pres. Cassidy Caron announces she won’t seek re-election, citing the “crossroads” facing the Métis Nation.
MNO doubles down on registry clean-up and re-commits to Bill C-53
MN-S passed a resolution to withdraw from the MNC, echoing MMF’s stance.
MNBC walks out of MNC. The press release said the national body no longer aligned with BC’s “governance vision.”
Federal minister puts Bill C-53 on ice
And then we have 2025 — the year the Métis political map splintered even further
13 January – 28 March 2025: the nine-week MNC v. Chartrand et al. trial
Ontario Superior Court sat for 37 days, hearing the Métis National Council’s $15-million civil suit that accuses former president Clément Chartier, MMF president David Chartrand and the MMF itself of a “scorched-earth scheme” to siphon veterans’ money and digital assets just before the MMF walked out in 2021.
Opening statements painted the affair as an attempt to “cripple the national institution”; Veterans Affairs officials, subpoenaed midway through, told the court they had “concerns” about how funds were moved to the MMF’s books. Closing arguments wrapped on 28 March; Justice McLeod reserved judgment.
Meanwhile, MNA marked two years of the Otipemisiwak Métis Government.
While the trial ticked on, the MNA Otipemisiwak Métis Government celebrated the second anniversary of its 2023 self-government recognition agreement and pressed Ottawa to finish a modern-treaty text.
The event underscored how Métis politics were now proceeding on multiple, sometimes competing, provincial tracks.
What happened to the disputed Ontario Metis communities?
Finally in 2025, the MNC Expert Panel releases its long-delayed Final Report.
After a year of hearings and 50 000 pages of archival review, the MNC-appointed three-person panel concluded that all eight Ontario communities under investigation—including the controversial six added in 2017—“meet the 2002 National Definition and are part of the Métis Nation Homeland.”
MNO hailed the report as “definitive proof.”
Chiefs of Ontario blasted it as “biased” and “factually deficient,” calling the methodology an exercise in “identity theft.”
The Red River Métis (MMF) dismissed the findings as “irrelevant to the prairie homeland.”
And so here is the final list, along with the critiques:
1. Rainy River / Lake of the Woods (Treaty 3 area, NW Ontario)
Fur-trade hubs: Fort Frances, Rat Portage, Eagle Lake.
Evidence cited by MNO & Ontario: Continuous “half-breed” population tied to HBC posts from the 1790s; 1875 Half-breed adhesion to Treaty 3.
Critique: MMF-commissioned researchers say “treaty adhesion ≠ distinct Métis polity; most families turn up later in Manitoba.”
2. Northern Lake Superior (north-shore posts from Michipicoten to Nipigon)
Evidence: Métis servants clustered at Fort William and Pic River from the early 1700s; 19th-century “half-breed” pay-lists distinct from Anishinaabe.
Critique: Chiefs of Ontario argue “mixed-ancestry workers do not prove a rights-bearing nation.”
3. Abitibi Inland (Timmins–Moose Factory corridor)
Evidence: Chain of inland HBC posts (Flying Post, Abitibi, Kenogamissi) with multigenerational Métis families; 1901 census shows 400–500 self-identified Métis.
Critique: Opponents say the region’s families were trading satellites of James Bay, not a separate western Métis off-shoot.
4. Mattawa / Ottawa River
Location: French and Ottawa rivers, gateway to the Montreal-Great Lakes route.
Evidence: 19th-century voyageur settlements and inter-married kin networks around Mattawa House. MNO-Ontario joint summary cites distinct “half-breed” parish lists.
Critique: Prairie governments say the area is well east of the recognized Homeland boundary (Lake Superior).
5. Georgian Bay (Penetanguishene–Midland)
Evidence: Mixed-ancestry petitioners at Penetanguishene 1840; fur-trade villages along the bay till c. 1870s.
Critique: MMF-funded 2020 audit calls the underlying research a “Métis-as-mixed” approach that ignores ethnogenesis tests.
6. Killarney (North Channel of Lake Huron)
Evidence: Voyageur-founded fishing and trading station (1820 De la Morandière family); census clusters of “half-breeds” through late 1800s.
Critique: Chiefs of Ontario say this lies inside Robinson-Huron treaty territory, where First Nations—not Métis—hold collective rights.
7. Sault Ste. Marie & Environs
Status: Accepted by all parties after the Powley decision (2003). Serves as the legal benchmark for proving Métis rights east of Lake Superior.
Has the MNC Expert Panel’s 2025 report settled anything, or merely shifted the battleground to First-Nation opposition?
Chiefs of Ontario call it biased; MNO calls it definitive. Who gets to umpire?
Where we are now (mid-2025)
The courts, an expert panel and the federal cabinet each issued high-stakes decisions—but none closed the rifts that opened in 2021-24.
The MNC’s lawsuit may decide who controls millions in assets, yet two of its founding provinces have walked away; the Expert Panel tried to settle Ontario’s legitimacy, only to inflame First-Nations and prairie leaders; and Bill C-53’s collapse leaves Métis self-government frozen at the negotiating table.
With Bill C-53 shelved, what is Canada’s next move on Métis self-government?
Restart legislation, negotiate province-by-province, or wait for the courts?
By mid-2025, the once-unified Métis National Council is down to Ontario and Alberta.
With the Red River Métis, Saskatchewan, and British Columbia operating outside it, and Ottawa has no legislation on the horizon that all sides will accept.
We are left with critical questions. Who speaks for the Métis people? Who decides? Does the MNC still have a national mandate with only two active members (Ontario & Alberta)?
If not, who will Ottawa recognize for prairie-wide or coast-to-coast Métis issues? Will Saskatchewan, Manitoba and B.C. ever return to a rebuilt MNC—or is permanent fragmentation the new normal?
Never forget what the real collateral damage is here. And who will suffer the most.
Politics can feel abstract until you realize every stalled bill, suspended registry file, or unresolved court case lands—sooner or later—on a child’s desk, dorm-room form, or clinic intake.
A high-school senior in Kenora wonders whether her MNO harvester card—now “under review”—will still count when she applies for a post-secondary bursary tagged “Métis only.”
A new father in Brandon sees two provincial governments competing to serve his family under different “Métis health” envelopes, neither large enough to serve everyone.
A language club in Île-à-la-Crosse suddenly loses federal youth-culture funding because Ottawa freezes payments until it decides which Métis body—MNC, MMF, or MN-S—can sign the contribution agreement.
That is the lived cost of this. The children don’t care whether compliance is “Powley-tight” or if an expert panel footnote is “biased”; they care whether their sash-day, scholarship, or child-welfare law will still be there next semester.
What do we owe our children?
If leaders can’t agree who belongs, the next generation will inherit less than an argument—they’ll inherit empty desks where elders and youth programs should have been.
Let’s pretend we know the epilogue – after the courtrooms close and the bills went cold
Imagine: autumn 2025. Ottawa’s committee lights are off, the judge’s decision is still under seal, and a Métis harvester stands at a northern gas pump wondering whether the card in her wallet will be honoured come moose season.
That is where the paperwork has left us: one national council reduced to two members, two break-away “governments” staking prairie ground, one shelved bill, eight Ontario communities stamped “valid” by experts yet “invented” by critics, and tens of thousands of living files waiting for a registrar’s next e-mail.
So the saga ends—for now—with no winner, but a set of choices:
Ottawa can restart legislation, but only after it decides whether “nation-to-nation” means two, five, or six Métis voices at the table.
The prairie and Red River leaders can keep policing the eastern gate—or draft a homeland charter that finally says where the gateposts stand and who holds the key.
The MNO and its critics can litigate ancestry community by community, or co-design a standard tight enough for the courts and human enough for the children on today’s baptism rolls.
And every Métis family caught between cards, audits and lawsuits can choose whether to wait for institutions to settle the score—or to keep dancing, hunting, speaking, and marrying across the very borders the paperwork is still trying to draw.