This is probably going to leave you with more questions than answers, but I do hope that your perception of the question itself will have shifted. I’ve no choice but to get all ‘identity’ on you. However, there is no real legislative context I can focus on when discussing who we are as Métis.

More important, I’d argue, than just knowing the state of the categories right now…but you have to start from somewhere! “May Tea?” Painting by David Garneau, from the series Cowboys and Indians (and Métis?) Trust me, there are much larger identity discussions yet to be had on ‘who is an Indian’. The topic of Status was a much easier discussion, because I avoided delving into identity issues in order to give you the bare bones legislative context. What this post and those previous two have in common, is that they are about identity.

In another post, I talked about Pan-Indianism, and also Pan-Métisism. I’m not a shut-in…I realised that there were different definitions out there, I simply hadn’t lived where I was defined by them before. In a previous post, I described what it is like as an Alberta Métis to come to Quebec and realise that ‘Métis’ does not mean the same thing here.

First roup photo supreme court