Identity Crisis | APTN Investigates

[Music] [Music] maytee identity is simple right do you think of the lawmaking you think of the Red River jig but paw or Gary the matey National Council says yes they have it in their heads that are the only making but wait mate eat peoples in the Maritimes we are more amazing than what the MNC is their history came from us the fight is on they're an elite key communities in Nova Scotia hello I'm Carla Moran tonight on aptn investigates at face value that turn matey seems simple enough a Western Canadian people born on the banks of the Red River their leader Louie Riel but increasingly groups in Atlantic Canada say they're just as matey and not only that the first mate he originated there hundreds of years before rial the main key National Council rejects that belief it's become a sharp divide over who should be calling themselves matey and identity crisis at stake are potential benefits yo come of recent court victories we start with what conventional wisdom suggests who the matey are [Music] it's who we are its natural than our DNA things we do even as a child is like your humor or gathering our social identity any lucema matey community of st. Lazare a stone's throw from the Saskatchewan Manitoba border we thrived we're a big mated community before even anybody came here people don't understand and make these more than Aboriginal ancestry it was European blood its history it's our the grassroots things it's it's all that combined we're going three note to the store chol for Dallas a very important historical place for the making people a lot of the meaty people around here their roots are at the for Dallas they were born here all this big open area right there all this year was the for dolls Amy wants the nearly 80 year old monument replaced other Depot's for Indian trade and pemmican you know what well you know what do you put what they want most most of the trading and pemmican was done but in and by the native people any believes there's only one true matey who come from Western Canada but in all reality ttle majority to making people they're not Oba Saskatchewan and Alberta in Atlantic Canada there are many who would say no way I'm not First Nations I'm not anyway so I'm making I'm of mixed blood growing up in rural New Brunswick meant hiding that fact until recently because for me it was a personal journey you know to uncover this little secret in a family my great-great-grandfather that's where he had his Buckley flour mill and he would have lost all his business from surrounding farmers if they would have found out that he was Aboriginal for now a cramped officers at the national headquarters that's because fire destroyed what was to be the head office all I remember is getting out of our vehicle and stepping to the back of the vehicle and dropping to my knees and crying and screaming and really distraught it's a hard loss you know we we weren't so hard to get for the past three years to get it where we were to almost completion a few nights later this small trailer went up in flames an accelerant was used over here as you can see down here we have our fire line where somebody had just deliberately tried to set fire to her log cabin the fire is still under investigation and it has nothing to do with the issue at hand however today's that summer started even before this back in June she was invited to a conference in Ottawa about the Daniel's decision she caught up to ask a question about how groups in the Maritimes had been called matey centuries ago and the lake 15 hundreds of early sixteen hundreds and children were registered as mix out we wouldn't listen to any of that she's referring to claim Chartier the legacy of a theme president of the meeting National Council the MNC represents five provincial organizations from Ontario and from each Western Province Chartier told debate Prairie matey are a distinct people with a distinct homeland whoa oh my Chinese mean there I took it as a personal talk and I also took it as him not being well educated the rest of the conference didn't get any better for today we had this huge debate matey I'm making I'm now and this year may I make you but you're not like anymore divide and conquer I think that's the mentality that's going on now who does claim charge anything he is Gregory Burke is chief of the Brad or Lake meaty a group from Cape Breton Island Nova Scotia to say that you were not making that's a dictatorship and when you allow that to happen then we have a serious problem in Houston Burke reached out to the MNC at one point he hoped to join the organization there is no response I sent several emails several letters made several phone calls and they should take the infinity sign off their flag because they're contradicting that infinity flag when they ignored me this is kind of I think a very important representation of of maytee history matey culture it's something like substantial Adam go jury is a self-described red river nationalist it's important that Makie remain in charge of determining who is matey and believes the turn matey is too widely used especially when it comes to self-identification like I said there could have been mixed communities elsewhere absolutely but they didn't have the same kind of nationalistic understanding of the matey nation and they didn't call themselves matey so why are we calling them matey Dubey rejects the suggestion she's not matey and rejects being called a non-static Indian and for me and non-status doesn't exist or it's like a very gray area either your First Nation your Mickey or your Ray Knight or your nothing at all clams I dug them up yesterday so they're fresh yep garnet birdie and his pals are getting ready for a clambake the word matey I guess we just used that probably for the last 20 years ready it's taking place on an island part of the tusky chain not far from Yarmouth Nova Scotia and it's not just the Sheep to call the place home well this is where our families have lived on these tusks eight islands for the last two hundred and seventy-five years saying and what he says they're a mixture of English Scottish and First Nation we are always comfortable with half-blood or half-free but that's not what they call themselves anymore we use that strictly now you I don't think you'll find anybody call themselves a hackery they'll just use the word matey we're comfortable with it and like sure that other people understand exactly what we're trying to say who we are if one considers the word matey as a marketing brand it's been relatively successful but at the time the matey nation is the standard in which these groups are trying to meet and so using our terminology which is now enshrined in law they're aspiring to kind of become matey on the scale that the main tea nation is and even though there's not the history for it its leader is one of the most recognizable in Canadian history reality is provisional government led Manitoba into Confederation harry daniels helped secure the matey as an indigenous group in the 1982 constitution the first time I've heard the word matey was back in 82 when my brother called me and said where were matey yogi says the rhetoric has gone beyond the mere act of recognition the argument that the eastern matey the eastern so-called meaty are the founding part of the matey nation I think is a power play to say that you know they're older than us they're more authentic than us probably started out east west their history they can trace it back to 1800 our history we can trace back to the 1600 if they want us to recognize them as superior or more authentic or more legitimate than we are I think that's that's really what they want and I don't think it is either reasonable or realistic that they make those demands I could say today that the MSE is has stole some of their culture from southern Texas because I see them foggy and fiddling in country and western music so maybe they don't have an identity maybe they stole all of their identity language on social media surrounding this dispute is even more severe red river main teen nationalist compared to the Gestapo main t leaders accused of lateral violence and linked to african slave traders do sometimes do I get hangry for sure I'm a human being Sebastian mallet is the author of those mean tweets to travel to a cave yeah for example and tell these people that they have no right to call me G so when I'm calling out that ideology as I think I'm doing and then you know words of my words are responding to that arsh context now it says his stance led to being bullied himself and he responded in kind on social media now in the passion of it of course sometimes especially on Twitter as you get exchanged I can be a little bit more heated or capture more attention than the other but I'm trying as much as I can to move toward and more productive and a more positive conversation conversely soldiery feels he's got a target on his back for defending the red river position it's tough it wears on you but it's an important thing that a lot of us feel we have to do it can undermine who we are as a people if everyone is matey no one is matey does it really matter how people identify themselves may see on the prairies would say it's a big deal victory is in court have given matey tangible rights such as the right to hunt but not everyone who is mixed flood can claim those rights more on that when we come back you [Music] coming up I'll talk more about how the courts are deciding who is meaty and who is not but before that just where do many of these meaty in the Maritimes come from we start in a place called the village historic Acadiana [Music] in 1604 seventy-nine French men established a colony in what is today New Brunswick says they didn't knew how winter was hard here in Canada I just suffer greatly there at half of them and died on that island that were buried their families didn't start arriving until the 16 30s and 40s not everywhere but some of them did marry between the two cultures we don't have a mythos culture or mythos that name over that thing education is not here like his out west Gregory Burke and his supporters disagree we say the Acadian matey began soon after colonization they didn't have any wives and they married they make Mob Wives what come out of that were the children of mixed breed the half-breeds Burke says that having one make my ancestor from that era is enough to make a person indigenous today I mean I always identified that as Indian and I only have one ancestor so who who has the right to say I'm not Indian he takes some time to show me the site of the ancestral communities the Acadian matey once occupied in Cape Breton they came and they settled we had all together pretty sure there was 70 families in sync in to sit in the middle of the 1700s is for our ancestors that were had to suffer the genocide it's for ancestors that for hundreds of years they weren't recognized as the indigenous people and it's time that we do be recognized as indigenous people his group went so far as to demonstrate in downtown Halifax two years ago asking the province for recognition we've been ignored for the last 400 years and movie came forward since 1973 and have continually been ignored my position is there never was what we could call a maytee settlement in Nova Scotia the local newspaper published his letters to the editor for the raid or matey group it wasn't positive they did not like my article letters I grew up in the same community as many of your members I've known some of them all my life came as a shock to me in the last couple years that there matey Burt dismisses used like Patrick ins I don't take that very seriously but he once spent a year in human resources and remembers an Aboriginal applicant she said oh no I'm not First Nations I'm a matey and I thought for a second I said okay well like where are you probably from Manitoba by the Red River settled it no no I'm from a community down the road I came to the conclusion she was claiming she was matey and joined the group because she had an Aboriginal ancestor from about 300 years ago he is claiming to an Aboriginal and should be given some special consideration for employment painted by his descendant David Garneau Adam Gauri believes that recent court victories like the Daniel's decision have led to misunderstandings about Aboriginal rights I think there's a perception that Daniels opened up Aboriginal rights to a larger number of people it doesn't do that it's a jurisdictional case so people wanting access to resources whether it's hunting rights or it's you know a leg up and university admissions process processes or if some access to scholarships I think a lot of it is driven by the perceived benefits that indigenous people get Tania Dube notes that when the Daniels ruling came down this past April current and potential members wanted to know one thing if they could start filling up tax free at first nation own gas bars because a lot of them called in for gas cards and I said well first of all what the guys are well and it's been timely to sit down and explain to our members a lot of stuff like no that that's not right that's for First Nation but as far as maytee rights go the poly case is far more important and Daniels the pally decision also kind of transformed how matey were perceived and I think it's with poly that we begin to see the formation of new communities that were attempting to access poly right particularly in Atlantic Canada named dr. Steve pally the Supreme Court of Canada agreed in 2003 he had an Aboriginal fight to hunt but the court wasn't about to give that right because anybody who claimed to be of mixed blood status instead it created the poly test in order to pass it a main key community needed to establish itself before the crown took control should have existed continuously since then and still exists today in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick there have been nine cases in the past dozen years testing pally all nine cases were rejected by the courts three of those cases were appealed to the Supreme Court their appeals were denied in other words the provincial court decisions were upheld well you've had 12 shots at it now and you have don't have one victory from you Bay admits passing a poly test will be difficult 1670 is the date pegged is when Acadia came under colonial control and proof of a continuous community since then is lacking and we know that they did exist it's just that we have a hard time finding the documents they were well hidden or destroyed sebastian Mallette would like the poly test to take in the historical circumstances like the Acadian expulsion in the 1750s for example the Acadian BT people faced deportation the systematic destruction of their communities those historical communities were you know not not encouraged to exist by the government for almost 200 years the distinction between Acadian and Acadian matey is sometimes not very clear it's very confusing for a lot of people to say well if you're Acadian then you're amazing well it's fair to say that the Acadian were the indigenous people so it's safe to say that all Acadian are indigenous yeah it is but are they of the Maine tea culture they could be it did not target but some sort of matey community that existed there it had targeted Acadians right it's why it's called the Acadian expulsion it targeted a settler population that the English felt spoke the wrong language serious assault practice the wrong culture and practice the wrong religion it was a targeted attack on Acadians not matey maleta and other supporters of Atlantic Canadian matey point to the Daniels decision yes it had nothing to do with identity but paragraph 17 contains a reference to a main key community and Lahav Nova Scotia and this is not just a random quote that the Supreme Court would put there the Supreme Court arguably are doing their homework when they're writing a decision especially after 17 years of a trial Lahab is about an hour's drive south of Halifax and was briefly the capital of Acadia in 1636 the Patrick Anne says it would be a stretch to suggest it's still a Maine tea community if it's to the point where they're claiming that the Acadian matey is essentially the Acadian culture in the Acadian traditions and the Acadian people and if you're a descendant of that you have some matey background I would estimate there probably be at least a hundred thousand more Nova Scotians who could show that the matey National Council refused a request to comment on this story a spokesperson would only say that the courts have already determined who the matey are which is an outside imposed test on the Nikki people mind you it's sad to me to see that some michi are now saying are you a Paola Michi if you're not a poly Michi then you're not a right or a true Polly Michi this conversation to me is is strange at best potage days this past summer and APTN investigates asked about whether or not there are meaty in Atlantic Canada I don't believe that that just just a mixture of Live Nation amazing person here we know exactly who would be maintained who wouldn't there it's a little bit more difficult I would say I would say yes well they're mixed what people I don't know if they're maybe this is the entrance to our park here Amy emits about his unfamiliarity with matey in Atlantic Canada but maybe I'm biased towards that you know what I am maybe I'm making her fall I don't eat me don't eat they got the same way the semester Tanya Dube and her husband John G say the Canadian Mankey council plans to open an affiliate in Manitoba soon right now it's divided but the good is going to come oh wow we'll get there yeah and do a nice landscaping she remembers how she felt when she learned she was matey he just felt whole you felt all together all one piece right and you didn't feel like you were alone anymore or that something was wrong and the family and some big dark secret that was hanging over your shoulders right well that's what it felt like I felt like relief you [Music] so how does the federal government respond to the question of who is matey a p10 investigates asked Indigenous Affairs Minister Caroline Bennett think that still the poly test is there but I think that it also means that people who lost their status for other reasons or who who are in a in a different category we have to figure out what that means so how did the MiG ma feel about 19 groups in Atlantic Canada after the Daniel's decision came down this past April the big bow rights initiative put out a statement is set in part that Aboriginal and treaty rights entitled belong distinctly to the big ma and that they remain the exclusive rice holders in the region great Burt plans to bring a case to test Khali however he had no details on when this is expected to happen next week we'll be taking a bit of a break because it's Remembrance Day you can tune in for a repeat showing of a soldier scorned in two weeks Josh government will have wheels and deals are used car businesses targeting average customers who have bad credit saddling them with high interest loans and debts and tall amaranth have a great evening [Music] [Music] you

Channel: APTN News

Views: 21,894

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Keywords: aptn, national, news, Identity, Crisis, Métis, Red, River, New, Brunswick, Nova, Scotia, Indigenous, Acadian

Id: lzNYGW0OimY

Length: 23min 54sec (1434 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 18 2017