'An existential threat:' First Nations challenge Ontario Métis self-government deal

First Nations in northeastern Ontario are alleging a lack of consultation and potential violations of their rights as they ask a federal judge to cancel a Métis Nation of Ontario (MNO) self-government agreement signed in February.

"These agreements with the Métis Nation of Ontario have been done in the dark, without the consultation or input with any of the First Nations," said Jason Batise, executive director of the Wabun Tribal Council, whose six member communities are advancing the case.

The Wabun Tribal Council consists of Matachewan, Brunswick House, Chapleau Ojibwe, Flying Post, Mattagami and Beaverhouse First Nations. 

Batise said the First Nations reject the asserted Métis presence in their traditional homeland, a swathe of Treaty 9 territory about the size of France, stretching from the Temiskaming area near the Ontario-Quebec border in the east to Lake Superior in the west.

"For us it's colonization 2.0, overlaying what we feel is a non-existent right to a community that was never there," said Batise, who is a member of Matachewan First Nation.

"It's not right, and that's why we're doing everything we can, including this judicial review, to make sure it doesn't happen."

They applied for judicial review in Federal Court in March, alleging Canada's self-government agreement with MNO recognizes communities that may be unable to pass the Métis rights test established by Canada's Supreme Court.

"This recognition poses an existential threat to the constitutionally protected rights of the First Nations who have used, occupied and stewarded their territory since time immemorial, consistent with their Anishinaabe laws," the court filing says. 

"The minister's decision to enter into the agreement was incorrect and unreasonable."

None of the allegations have been proven in court.

The Métis are a distinct Indigenous people with a shared culture, traditions and language who emerged in the northwest of what is now Canada in the late 1700s. The existence of Métis communities outside the northwest is contentious.

In 2017, the Ontario government and the MNO announced the identification of six historic Métis communities throughout the province. One of them, the Abitibi Inland Historic Métis Community, is largely within the Wabun council area and thus the main target of the council's ire.

According to Ontario and MNO, this Métis community developed among a scattered series of interconnected trading posts between Moose Factory on the James Bay coast in the north to the Temiskaming region in the south.

The Wabun Tribal Council commissioned its own report in response, delivered in September 2022 by University of Ottawa researcher Darryl Leroux, challenging MNO's conclusions. Batise said the First Nations elders in the region also dispute the claims.