Alberta's Métis Settlements Legislation

Michael Payne is head of the reasearch and publications program,
Historic Sites and Archives Service, Alberta Community Development, and
co-author of A Narrative History of Fort Dunvegan.

The settlement of Métis land claims has proved a very complicated legal
and moral issue, and one that most governments have been reluctant to
address. To begin with, the issue raises important constitutional issues
over jurisdiction. For example, are the Métis “Indians” and
therefore a federal responsibility under the Constitution Act of 1867,
or can provincial governments create specifically Métis settlements
using their local government and property and civil rights powers?
Moreover, do agreements on a Métis land base that at least partially
settle potential land claims constitute a modern treaty? If so, they are
the prerogative and responsibility of the federal government, not of the
provincial ones. So far, at least, the provinces, aside from Alberta,
have chosen to argue that the Métis are a federal responsibility, while
the federal government has generally taken the opposite position.
Through it all, of course, most Métis have received neither land nor
autonomy.

In Alberta, both the Métis and the provincial government have adopted
an interesting model that may offer a way around these constitutional
roadblocks. Bell and other legal experts have characterized this model
as a results—rather than a rights—oriented approach. Rather than
asserting a “right,” based on aboriginal status, to a degree of
political and economic autonomy and an assured land base, Alberta’s
Métis have concentrated instead on negotiating pragmatic agreements
that leave it to the government to decide if the motive “was
conscience or constitution.”

This book details the evolution of those agreements, from the 1936
Ewing Commission to the Métis Settlements Acts of 1990, specifically
focusing on the legislation governing Métis settlements and the legal
and administrative issues arising from that legislation. A history
neither of Alberta’s Métis settlements nor of the negotiations
leading to their creation (though a book on either subject would be
fascinating), this book is most likely to be of use to lawyers and
administrators who deal with issues arising from land use planning or
resource management or the intricacies of land title in Métis
settlements.