From Colonial Legacies To Promising Futures Unpacking The Daniels V Canada Decision And The Future Of The Metis

After years of existing in jurisdictional limbo, the Métis have finally been handed down a Supreme Court declaration affirming that they too, alongside the Inuit and First Nations peoples, fall under the federal government's jurisdiction over "Indians and Lands reserved for the Indians" as outlined under Section 91(24) of the Constitution Act, 1867. While the April 2016 decision in Daniels v. Canada did remove a significant obstacle for the Métis in the pursuit of rights recognition and meaningful negotiations with the federal government, the decision is worth unpacking. This thesis critically examines the Daniels decision from a Métis and decolonizing lens, and explores the potential outcomes and implications of this decision for the Métis. What this thesis finds that this decision has been achieved by relying on colonial concepts of history, Métis identity, as well as colonial expansionist and assimilationist goals from centuries ago. As for the future of this decision, this thesis finds that it remains largely unsolved, but holds great potential- despite the core of the decision being purely about jurisdiction.

In Daniels v. Canada the Supreme Court determined that Métis and non-status Indians were “Indians” under section 91(24) of the Constitution Act, 1867, one of a number of court victories that has powerfully shaped Métis relationships with the federal government. However, the decision (and the case) continues to reverberate far beyond its immediate policy implications. Bringing together scholars and practitioners from a wide array of professional contexts, this volume demonstrates the power of Supreme Court of Canada cases to directly and indirectly shape our conversations about and conceptions of what Indigeneity is, what its boundaries are, and what Canadians believe Indigenous peoples are “owed.” Attention to Daniels v. Canada’s variegated impacts also demonstrates the extent to which the power of the courts extend and refract far deeper and into a much wider array of social arenas than we often give them credit for. This volume demonstrates the importance of understanding “law” beyond its jurisprudential manifestations, but it also points to the central importance of respecting the power of court cases in how law is carried out in a liberal nation-state such as Canada.

Bead by Bead examines the parameters that current Indigenous legal doctrines place around Métis rights discourse and moves beyond a one-size-fits-all approach. Contributors to this volume address the historical denial of Métis concerns with respect to land, resources, and governance. Tackling such themes as the invisibility of Métis women in court decisions, identity politics, and racist legal principles, they uncover the troubling issues that plague Métis aspirations for a just future. By revealing the diversity of Métis identities and lived reality, this critical analysis opens new pathways to respectful, inclusive Métis-Canadian constitutional relationships.

This past year, the Supreme Court of Canada unanimously ruled that the term "Indians", as defined in Canada's constitution, includes non-status Indians and Métis. This ruling brought to a close the seminal Daniels v. Canada case, launched in 1999. Hailed by some lawyers as being more significant than Tsilhqot'in, the possible impacts of the Daniels case are tremendous. As a starting point, Métis and non-status individuals and groups will now have an opening in which to pursue land claims and seek access to additional government programs and services. So how will this ruling affect Canada's Métis people? And what further changes could we expect moving forward? Join us for this special 90-minute webinar, where Tom Isaac, a nationally recognized authority in the field of Aboriginal law, and the President of the Métis National Council, Clément Chartier, discuss the emergence and evolution of the Métis Nation, and the challenges and opportunities that flow from the Daniels Decision. Tom and Clément will take you through the history of the Supreme Court of Canada's decisions that have impacted the Métis Nation from Powley to Daniels. They will also contextualize the exclusion of the Métis by the Federal government in a number of key areas. In addition to discussing the Daniels decision, this webinar will also explore the recently released report ""A Matter of National and Constitutional Import: Report of the Minister's Special Representative on Reconciliation with Métis: Section 35 Métis Rights and the Manitoba Metis Federation Decision," "written by Tom Isaac.

Outlines the rights sought by the Metis people.

These twelve essays constitute a groundbreaking volume of new work prepared by leading scholars in the fields of history, anthropology, constitutional law, political science, and sociology, who identify the many facets of what it means to be Métis in Canada today. After the Powley decision in 2003, Métis peoples were no longer conceptually limited to the historical boundaries of the fur trade in Canada. Key ideas explored in this collection include identity, rights, and issues of governance, politics, and economics. The book will be of great interest to scholars in political science and Indigenous studies, the legal community, public administrators, government policy advisors, and people seeking to better understand the Métis past and present. Contributors: Christopher Adams, Gloria Jane Bell, Glen Campbell, Gregg Dahl, Janique Dubois, Tom Flanagan, Liam J. Haggarty, Laura-Lee Kearns, Darren O'Toole, Jeremy Patzer, Ian Peach, Siomonn P. Pulla, Kelly L. Saunders.

This is the Final Report of Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission and its six-year investigation of the residential school system for Aboriginal youth and the legacy of these schools. This report, the summary volume, includes the history of residential schools, the legacy of that school system, and the full text of the Commission's 94 recommendations for action to address that legacy. This report lays bare a part of Canada's history that until recently was little-known to most non-Aboriginal Canadians. The Commission discusses the logic of the colonization of Canada's territories, and why and how policy and practice developed to end the existence of distinct societies of Aboriginal peoples. Using brief excerpts from the powerful testimony heard from Survivors, this report documents the residential school system which forced children into institutions where they were forbidden to speak their language, required to discard their clothing in favour of institutional wear, given inadequate food, housed in inferior and fire-prone buildings, required to work when they should have been studying, and subjected to emotional, psychological and often physical abuse. In this setting, cruel punishments were all too common, as was sexual abuse. More than 30,000 Survivors have been compensated financially by the Government of Canada for their experiences in residential schools, but the legacy of this experience is ongoing today. This report explains the links to high rates of Aboriginal children being taken from their families, abuse of drugs and alcohol, and high rates of suicide. The report documents the drastic decline in the presence of Aboriginal languages, even as Survivors and others work to maintain their distinctive cultures, traditions, and governance. The report offers 94 calls to action on the part of governments, churches, public institutions and non-Aboriginal Canadians as a path to meaningful reconciliation of Canada today with Aboriginal citizens. Even though the historical experience of residential schools constituted an act of cultural genocide by Canadian government authorities, the United Nation's declaration of the rights of aboriginal peoples and the specific recommendations of the Commission offer a path to move from apology for these events to true reconciliation that can be embraced by all Canadians.

Drawing Futures brings together international designers and artists for speculations in contemporary drawing for art and architecture.Despite numerous developments in technological manufacture and computational design that provide new grounds for designers, the act of drawing still plays a central role as a vehicle for speculation. There is a rich and long history of drawing tied to innovations in technology as well as to revolutions in our philosophical understanding of the world. In reflection of a society now underpinned by computational networks and interfaces allowing hitherto unprecedented views of the world, the changing status of the drawing and its representation as a political act demands a platform for reflection and innovation. Drawing Futures will present a compendium of projects, writings and interviews that critically reassess the act of drawing and where its future may lie.Drawing Futures focuses on the discussion of how the field of drawing may expand synchronously alongside technological and computational developments. The book coincides with an international conference of the same name, taking place at The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, in November 2016. Bringing together practitioners from many creative fields, the book discusses how drawing is changing in relation to new technologies for the production and dissemination of ideas.