longer.blue

I’ve been laid up the last few days with a back sprain and ever since the FNFMM on Monday, I’ve had some time to think beyond my initial - YES! - this is great. I am saddened by the division I’m seeing between Metis and FNs. My knee jerk reaction was to question some FN leaders’ motives. It has urged me to learn more about Bill C-21 (the Red River Metis Self-Government Recognition and Implementation Act) which seems non-threatening to me as it doesn’t include land, harvesting or land-related rights. It even goes so far to include a non-derogation clause (which I learned was a legal rule that ensures a law cannot diminish any pre-existing rights). I don’t fully understand the intricacies of where the anxiety lies. As an RR Metis citizen, I would like to. I better understand trepidation to abolish the Indian Act. Ottawa is banking on communities drowning in administrative inertia, forcing a one-year regulatory time-line, Bill C-39, down our neighbours’ throats. It isn’t realistic for the majority of Nations to completely abolish the Act, or to even clear the waitlists for a sectoral land shield, to obtain the veto power they need to ensure their lands aren’t steam-rolled. Building a sovereign future on scarred land? I really wanted this to be the historic and positive move that it is being made out to be. It isn’t. Not that I can deduce. #IndigenousPolitics #IndianAct #CdnPoli #BillC39 #FNFMM