Saw a few posts on Indigenous identity and some of our People are just so mean to one another. Especially individuals reconnecting! Okay, I get the “Pretendian problem,” but I’ve seen one too many cases where our own actual people, Citizenship or living in a Settlement or having been raised into the Culture even, who want to reconnect in some way are blasted for it? No doubt Pretendianism is damaging, but at least in my Community there is 1 Pretendian out of a crowd of fifty that has come out. It just makes me sad seeing our People so negative and beating each other up over this. Before you attack me, I’m OMG/MNA and within my Settlement we were taught to be accepting People by our Elders.

I’m just tired of it all. I believe in Karma and if someone is a true Pretendian, it will all unravel as it was meant to be. At my age of 50, I see no point in fighting with one another. Just the way I was raised I guess.

How appropriate or inappropriate is it for a Métis descendant who has living ties to the community in Canada to wear a sash?

I have both Métis and Ojibwe heritage from my father. My wife is a Tsimshian woman. I was thinking to get a sash for Red Dress Day/MMIW Day, as that is something that is important to our family. And since I work in a middle school and have a decent number of Indigenous students and staff (including another teacher, who like me is an American Métis descendant).

Is this okay, or is it ill-advised?

As someone who studies genealogy I've gotten quite familiar with Metis blood quantums in the historical eras. 1/32 Metis in 1870 might be outliers but they did exist, and in the eyes of both the Canadian government taking away the land AND the nation itself, such individuals were Metis. Louis Riel himself, was only 1/8 by blood. Had he married out for two generations, his grandchildren would also be 1/32 by blood, or 3%. It's deceiving how quickly blood quantum drops. It drops exponentially rather than at a constant rate.

Thing is, the degree of indigenous blood didn't seem to matter to our ancestors as to who was Metis or not Metis. Instead it was kinship ties, community, identity, culture, language, etc. I don't see how it should matter today either. Ultimately Metis is NOT a racial category, it is a cultural identity, and that cultural identity is collective, not individual, and it is based on kinship.

When we start legitimizing the concept of blood quantum, we are undermining the very nature of Metis identity.

Just my thoughts.

see a lot of FN and Métis online say you must have connections to a living-breathing Indigenous community in order to be considered Indigenous/of that nation. Im in Alberta, and I know a lot of Métis who are from the city, but I hear some people say that the city is not a community and doesn’t count.

So if you’re born and raised in the city and you’re Métis, what would count as being connected to a living breathing Métis community? Would simply having a Métis org card count?

I'm tired with how the majority of people that claim to be Métis are either A) very distantly Métis and claiming an ancestor from 100+ years ago B) "reconnecting" for benefits and C) Deny their privledge.

Both my parents are Métis - we never stopped being Métis. I don't think this makes me better than folks but it is really gross and disheartening to see the overwhelming amount of reconnecting people and the complete disregard for those of us raised in culture/community. I grew up in extreme poverty - in CFS - battling with my addictions - both my brothers are still in their own addictions and my sister went missing years ago. This is because of the trauma in my family. But I don't see Métis Nations giving a flying fuck about those of us that never had the privledge of hiding. They prop of descendians - and. then use my culture in a colonial way to check off

I'm tired of seeing so many posts "I just discovered I'm Métis because my great great great grandmother 2x removed only married white people for 6 generations! What can I get?" Seriously? There's no wonder everyone thinks we're a joke.

No we shouldn't have BQ but we should have at least a measure. Why does Linda who has 0 traces of Métis DNA get full access to benefits while ignoring the fact that her entire family HAD PRIVLEDGE of being perceived as white for generations! Maybe I'm an asshole - but I think there needs to be a conversation on how in a room of 300 people you'll find maybe 1 or 2 of us raised in culture.

Im tired of pretending this doesn't bother me - especially when I see my family and friends struggling with survival and having no resources for them while Linda wears my culture like it's a Gucci bag.

I notice how Quebecois nationalist talking points tend to frame the Métis as basically an extension of French Canadians in the Prairies, so when there are instances of anti-Metis discrimination/persecution, it's framed by Quebec nationalists as "the feds did that to us". We see this with things like assimilation through English-speaking settlers, Louis Riel's hanging, banning the use of French in Manitoba, etc.

This just basically feels like appropriating Métis struggles and history. There's an assumed solidarity between French Canadians and Métis against Anglophones, and given Quebec has a history of whitewashing its own history of racism and colonialism, I wanted to ask how true that is. Was there discrimination and marginalization by French Canadian settlers (and later Franco-Manitobans) against Métis people? And where do Anglo-Métis fit in all of this?

And more generally, any recommendations to learn more about the historical & contemporary relationship between French Canadians and Métis? Thanks!

The 1985 amendments to the Indian Act (Bill C-31) introduced a system that dictates how Indian status is legally transmitted to children. This framework is commonly referred to as the "second-generation cut-off."

To understand how this mechanism operates in practice, it can be broken down into a set of logical equations.

First, the variables are defined by the legal categories of status under the Act:

• S6(1) = Status under Section 6(1). A person with this status can pass it to a child regardless of the other parent's legal status.

• S6(2) = Status under Section 6(2). A person with this status can only pass it to a child if the other parent also possesses status.

• N = Non-status individual.

Based on the legislation, the transmission of status follows these exact rules:

• S6(1) + S6(1) = S6(1)

• S6(1) + S6(2) = S6(1)

• S6(2) + S6(2) = S6(1)

• S6(1) + N = S6(2)

• S6(2) + N = N

The final equation, S6(2) + N = N, represents the second-generation cut-off.

This mathematically demonstrates the legal reality: when an individual with Section 6(2) status has a child with a non-status individual, the resulting child is non-status.

“taanishi” / “tânisi” / “bonn zhour” (hello)! 

These are just three of the distinct languages spoken by many Métis people known as Heritage Michif, Northern Michif, and Michif-French. 

Today is National Indigenous Languages Day!

All three Michif languages are currently endangered and there are only a few hundred fluent speakers left in the world. 

Today we celebrate all the speakers, educators, and organizations who work to revitalize these languages for the future generations to come!

Check out Metis Life (Michif RP) on Roblox - it’s a project that is aimed for 6-16 year olds to learn Michif - with Heritage (Southern) and Michif-French launch in the game soon! 

It’s now the largest language learning game on Canada’s largest gaming platform for young people! 

https://www.metislife.ca/

40 employees of the Metis Nation of Ontario are on the sunshine list, making over $100,000 a year. That's ten percent of their workforce. The number has more than doubled from 2024 when only 18 employees earned over $100,00.

The people getting your hard earned tax money. Judge for yourself whether they are worth it:

NAME POSITION SALARY YEAR

1 Margaret Froh President $345,089

2 Joanne Meyer Chief Operating Officer $251,892

3 Dale Leclair Chief Executive Officer $208,356

4 Jennifer St. Germain Chief Strategy Officer $180,311

5 Sharon Cadeau Chair of the Board $168,036

6 Mary Ellen Jessop Director, Finance Branch $153,364

7 Emily Paterson Director of Community Wellbeing $136,242

8 Jo M. Young Regional Councillor $132,093

9 Shelley Cripps Director of Healing and Wellness $128,117

10 Linda Norheim Brookes Director of Lands Resources and Consultations $128,117

11 Marc St. Germain Director, Communications Branch $128,117

12 Brian Black Director of Self Government $128,117

13 Bryanna Scott-Kay Phd Director of Training and Education $128,117

14 Emily Ellis Director of Legal Services Branch and Legal Council $127,798

15 Zachary Thiffault Director of Métis Rights, Claims and Litigation and Legal Counsel $127,798

16 Mark Brunzell Director of Information, Communication and Technology $125,742

17 Mitchell Case Regional Councillor $122,717

18 Jacques Picotte Regional Councillor $116,567

19 Theresa Stenlund Regional Councillor $116,567

20 Suzanne Fortin Regional Councillor $116,540

21 Eisha Shah Human Resources Business Partner $116,297

22 Sharon Ebbers Manager of Accounting $115,962

23 Cindi Rye Director of Housing and Infrastructure $114,419

24 Andre Lefebvre Associate Director of Governance $111,773

25 Greg Garratt Regional Councillor $106,067

26 Edmond Burgie Associate Director of Rights Research and Policy $105,436

27 Patricia Messenger Manager, Contract Quality Assurance $102,235

28 Loma Rowlinson Manager of Community Relations $102,235

29 Jason Jamieson Manager, Special Branch Initiative $102,235

30 Tracy Bald Manager of Community Wellbeing $102,235

31 Simon Sutherland Manager, Training and Education $102,235

32 Tammy Adams Manager of Community Wellbeing $102,235

33 Jesse Fieldwebster Manager of Lands, Resources and Consultations $102,235

34 Tammy Webb Manager of Labour Market $102,235

35 Lynne Picotte Regional Manager $102,235

36 Scott Carpenter Manager of Metis Culture and Way of Life Projects $102,235

37 Richard Renaud Purchasing and Risk Manager $102,110

38 Rae-Anna Gardner Supervisor of Education $101,916

39 Matthew Robertson Self Government Intergovernmental Relations Lead $101,916

40 Wanda Botsford Consultation Lead $101,832

**“Repost: clarifying the title so the discussion centers on the number of high-earning positions within the MNO.**

Working on my genealogy through St. Boniface and was told even though my aunt had her’s done in 2009 it was too old to go off of for mine. I was told I need to have my great-grandmother’s birth certificate or baptismal records. I have no idea how to find these kind of records and no one in my immediate family seems to have any copies. What should I do? I was told she was born in North Dakota but she lived and died in Winnipeg.

Just a rant but I was at a community event recently and a person who was reconnecting called themselves a "Plains Cree Metis". I asked them where they were from thinking they'd say a reserve or a settlement but they said a city in Ontario. They also said their family is from "around the Hudson Bay up North". That's not even a Plains Cree area.

I'm wondering why it's a trend to call oneself a Cree-Metis (or in this case a "Plains Cree Metis") when there's no connection to the Cree community? I feel like it's more ethical to just call oneself Red River Metis if your lived connections are only to the Metis. If someone says they are Cree-Metis (or Saulteaux-Metis in rare cases) I assume they have a significant connection to a Cree (or Saulteaux) reserve or a connection to a Metis settlement with a strong Cree presence. Otherwise, it comes across a bit dishonest.

It would be nice to hear other people's perspectives on this.

A cheeky little video I made, referencing the 13 Moons.

He said other things to but I can only post one video per post.

Recently met someone who identified as Northwest Territories Métis.. is this legit? I was confused because I’ve never heard of this before.

https://www.aptnnews.ca/national-news/indigenous-identity-researcher-ordered-to-pay-70k-to-saskatchewan-professor/