“federal policies… deprived Métis people”

In an effort to expand its territorial boundaries following Confederation, Canada implemented a series of formal and informal policies aimed at extinguishing Indigenous Peoples’ land-related rights and titles within their homelands, ultimately making way for sustained Canadian settlement.

While Canada generally negotiated and signed agreements with First Nations collectives as part of this process, such as the Numbered Treaties, it largely refused to negotiate or enter into agreements with the Métis people or communities as collectives. Instead, Canada opted to “extinguish” Métis land-related interests on an individual basis—two notable exceptions to this approach being the 1873 Halfbreed Adhesion to Treaty 3, which the Métis of Rainy River and Lake entered into as a collective, and the collective promises to the Métis found under Section 31 of the Manitoba Act, 1870. 

As highlighted in the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (RCAP), however: “the political fall-out from the Métis uprising at Red River contaminated Métis government relations and spawned federal policies that increasingly deprived Métis people of their Aboriginal entitlements.”

By the time of Treaty 9’s negotiations in the James Bay region in 1905, “there was no longer any question of bargaining with the Métis as a group”. Instead, “those who had been assimilated to the Indian way of life were generally given treaty status… those who asserted Métis identity were offered scrip under the Dominion Lands Act.”

Despite “treaty commissioners encounter[ing] a major Métis presence in the Moose Factory area” at the time of Treaty 9 negotiations—many with multigenerational family ties to Métis communities on the prairies—Canada refused to implement its Métis scrip policies east of Manitoba, leaving no legal process to address the inherent Métis rights and claims of the distinct Métis community at Moose Factory. 

In response, the Métis in Moose Factory organized and petitioned the government to address its arbitrary policy implementation and resulting inequities—an act of collective Métis advocacy now known as the 1905 Moose Factory Métis Petition. 

While the Crown ultimately determined to “allow these half-breeds…160 acres of land reserving minerals” in answer to this petition, there is no evidence that the Crown ever communicated its intent to the Métis at Moose Factory. As a result, most Métis departed Moose Factory for other parts of the Abitibi Inland region to the south.

See Our Sources

• 1905 Moose Factory Métis Petition

• Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples: Vol. 4: Perspectives and Realities

• Abitibi Inland Métis Community’s Submissions to the MNC Expert Panel

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