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Appeal court rejects Métis land claim

MMF to file appeal in bid for compensation

By: Mary Agnes Welch

Posted: 07/8/2010 1:00 AM | Comments: 0 (including replies)

‘It’s not a loss. We just didn’t win, so there is still another round to go’ -- MMF President David Chartrand (JAMES O'CONNOR / BRANDON SUN)

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Two lower courts have rejected their argument, but Manitoba's Métis will ask the Supreme Court to decide whether Canada cheated Métis children out of 1.4 million acres of land in the Red River Valley more than 100 years ago.

Manitoba Métis Federation President David Chartrand said a trip to Canada's highest court was inevitable and the MMF's lawyer plans to file the appeal immediately in a case that could cost government billions of dollars and rewrite aboriginal law.

On Wednesday, Manitoba's Court of Appeal ruled against the MMF, saying that while Canada had a fiduciary duty to the Métis settlers and may have been careless and slow in carrying out that duty, it did not deliberately breach it.

"(While) there may well have been inattention or carelessness, there is no convincing evidence that Canada's conduct overall constituted "deliberate ineptitude" or "unconscionable conduct," so as to constitute a breach of fiduciary duty," wrote Richard Scott, chief justice of the Manitoba Court of Appeal.

The 253-page decision upholds an even heftier lower court decision that rejected a request by the MMF to declare unconstitutional the way 1.4 million acres was parcelled out to hundreds of Métis children when Manitoba entered Confederation.

"It's not a loss," said Chartrand. "We just didn't win, so there is still another round to go."

Chartrand said the Supreme Court has often overturned lower court decisions and recalibrated aboriginal rights. And he joked that legendary baseball player Babe Ruth never gave up after two strikes and the MMF won't either.

At issue is the way Canada made good on a promise made to Louis Riel to preserve Métis settlement rights along the Red and Assiniboine rivers in 1870 by giving each Métis child a share of 1.4 million acres and ensuring those land rights wouldn't be derailed by speculators and the waves of new immigrants to the province. Instead, the exact opposite occurred because, the MMF argues, Canada and Manitoba delayed the process by a decade and enacted a series of underhanded measures meant to thwart the rights of Métis children.

"This case is part of the unfinished business of history," said MMF lawyer Tom Berger.

The MMF does not want to claim what is now Winnipeg and strips on both sides of the Red River in southern Manitoba. Instead, it ultimately wants financial compensation that it could either dole out to current Métis people or use to fund economic development projects.

The case has dragged through the courts for nearly 30 years, including a previous detour to the Supreme Court, but lawyers for the federal and provincial government wouldn't speculate on whether a negotiated settlement to compensate the Métis might have ultimately been cheaper.

Federal lawyer Derek Pieters said he is still reviewing the ruling, "but the decision confirms that the governments of Canada and Manitoba complied with their legal obligations."

maryagnes.welch@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition July 8, 2010 A5

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