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Her Majesty's Justice Be Done: Métis Legal Mobilization and the Pitfalls to Indigenous Political Movement Building

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 June 2016

Daniel Voth
Daniel Voth*
Affiliation:
University of Calgary
*
Department of Political Science University of Calgary, 2500 University Drive NW, Calgary AB, T2N 1N4, email: daniel.voth@ucalgary.ca
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Abstract

Indigenous peoples have, to varying degrees, turned to the courts to litigate their ongoing disputes with Canada's settler colonial governments. Scholars have examined well the ways courts are used for strategic political ends by a variety of Indigenous and non-Indigenous litigants and are laden with settler values and institutional logics that are foreign to Indigenous peoples. However, it is less clear what effect turning to the courts in pursuit of strategic goals has on specific relationships between Indigenous peoples. This gap is more pronounced in Métis scholarship where there have been few final appellate cases. This paper argues the interaction between the Manitoba Métis Federation and Treaty 1 peoples seeking leave to intervene at the Manitoba Court of Appeal in MMF v. Canada illuminates the way litigating Indigenous-settler disputes can advance divisive, exclusionary, zero-sum political relationships between Indigenous peoples. These fractious interactions serve to undermine the construction of a co-ordinated and related inter-Indigenous decolonizing politics.

Résumé

Les peuples autochtones se sont adressés, à des degrés divers, aux tribunaux pour régler leurs différends en cours avec les gouvernements coloniaux du Canada. Les universitaires ont examiné les façons dont les tribunaux sont sollicités à des fins de stratégies politiques par différents justiciables autochtones et non autochtones et sont empreints de valeurs coloniales et de logiques institutionnelles étrangères à celles des peuples autochtones. Les incidences qu'a le recours aux tribunaux dans la poursuite d'objectifs stratégiques sur les relations des peuples autochtones entre eux sont cependant moins claires. Cet écart est plus prononcé en ce qui concerne la littérature sur les Métis, dont peu de cas ont été portés en appel de dernière instance. Cet article soutient que l'interaction entre la Manitoba Metis Federation Inc. et les peuples du traité no 1 demandant l'autorisation d'intervenir à la Cour d'appel du Manitoba dans la cause MMF c. Canada éclaire la manière dont le règlement des litiges entre colonisateurs et Autochtones peut mener à des relations politiques conflictuelles, d'exclusion et à somme nulle entre les nations autochtones. Ces interactions acrimonieuses ont pour conséquence de saper la mise en place d'une politique interautochtone coordonnée et dépourvue de connotation coloniale.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique , Volume 49 , Issue 2 , June 2016 , pp. 243 - 266
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association (l'Association canadienne de science politique) and/et la Société québécoise de science politique 2016 

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