400 Métis families get chance to buy first home

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This article was published 15/02/2019 (2413 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Manitoba Metis Federation unveiled a program Friday to help Métis families buy their first homes, one step toward correcting a historic injustice when the Red River Métis lost their homes 150 years ago.

Federation president David Chartrand characterized the first-time homebuyers grant program as the “head start” the Métis were promised in 1870 when the province entered Confederation. It was a celebratory announcement with Liberal Métis MP Dan Vandal at the federation’s downtown office.

“I want to make it very clear, this first initiative is to get back that ‘head start’ that was robbed from our generations,” Chartrand said as he launched into a 10-minute depiction of 150 years of troubled history for the Manitoba Métis.

He praised the Trudeau Liberals for recognizing the Métis and heavily criticized Premier Brian Pallister’s PC government, saying it has turned its back on the Métis.

“At one time, we were the power. We were the owners of this land… yet we lost our homes. We lost our lands. We were chased off of them. We were called the road-allowance people because we had no land, no homes,” Chartrand said. “Now, we can give (them) back to our children and our families.”

The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. (CMHC) will give 400 Métis families grants of up to $15,000 this year to buy their first homes. The cost of the program is $5 million.

Brandon jail guard Darcy Fleury and his family are expected to be among the first applicants.

“Trying to get all the money, it takes a long time to save that up, especially when you have three kids and they’re all in sports and in school. My girlfriend and I have talked about this since we first heard about it a year ago,” Fleury said. “I’ll be the first to put my hat in the ring and see if it all works out.”

He was invited to Friday’s announcement because his grandfather, George Fleury, was a founder of the federation in 1967.

The Métis Capital Corp., a financing agency of the federation, will administer the grants that are being made available through CMHC and were negotiated following a 2013 landmark victory for the Manitoba Métis after the Trudeau Liberals were elected in 2015. Chartrand also gave a blow-by-blow account of how the Harper Conservatives slammed the door on negotiating with the Métis.

“This is reconciliation in action,” he said, before turning his sights on the province, which had no role in the announcement.

“Just imagine if the province, if Pallister, decided to partner with us, the Métis people… Unfortunately, that’s not happening. Thank God, we have Justin Trudeau,” Chartrand said.

The Pallister government and the federation have sparred publicly since Pallister was elected in 2016, but the biggest fallout was when Pallister quashed a $67.5-million deal the Métis had worked out with Manitoba Hydro, dismissing it as “hush money.”

“I can’t say enough to the minister and to the Trudeau government for believing and for doing the right thing and correcting the wrongs of the past,” Chartrand said.

Under the program, first-time homebuyers also registered with the MMF — there are about 36,000 members — will qualify for down-payment grants to a maximum of $15,000 on homes worth up to $285,000, as long as the homeowner stays in the home for 10 years.

Another $2,500 is available for closing costs and the program is expected to generate $80 million in mortgage spinoffs. This is the first of many MMF real estate and building initiatives planned for Manitoba in the next few years, the MMF president promised. Housing for seniors is being planned and the federation is negotiating on several parcels of land.

In addition to the $5-million grant program, there’s also a separate fund of $500 million over 10 years that the Trudeau government has set aside under an accord signed last summer with national representatives of the Métis.

Vandal called it a distinct sub-accord, the first ever to be signed.

“That sort of distinction-based housing with the Métis has never been done before. It recognizes the rights of the Métis nation to design, deliver and administer housing services,” Vandal said.

Under the Manitoba Act in 1870, a “head start” land program promised 1.4 million acres of land to Manitoba Métis when Louis Riel negotiated the province’s entry into Confederation. Most of it was lost by 1880 in the rush for settlement.

A Supreme Court of Canada decision five years ago ruled the federal government was “ineffectual and inequitable” and did not fully deliver on promises made in the Manitoba Act. The court obliged the government to act diligently now to protect the honour of the Crown.

alexandra.paul@freepress.mb.ca