Despite considerable academic attention to the role of family caregivers within the general population, little research has been conducted with Indigenous families. This qualitative study aims to fill that gap by focusing on the experiences of Metis caregivers providing care for older Metis adults. Focus groups and interviews were conducted with Metis family caregivers (n = 79), Metis Elders (n = 11) and formal caregivers (n = 8). Although there are considerable parallels in the caregiving experiences identified in this Metis study with those already documented in the literature, there are nonetheless important differences for providing culturally responsive care to Metis seniors.

When British Columbia was founded in 1858, the colonial regime classified Indians as savage, on the anthropological scale of civilization, and then imposed on them civilizing tactics designed to create semi-civilized British subjects. By the 1860s the colonial regime feared that the growing presence of Chinese immigrants, whom they initially classified as semi-civilized on the anthropological scale of civilization, would subvert this objective. They therefore disempowered Chinese through the imposition of de-civilizing tactics designed to create barbarian aliens. By 1887 these combined civilizing and de-civilizing tactics had resulted in the reclassification of Indians as semi-civilized and of Chinese as barbarian.