Having devoted a lifetime to Métis rights and activism, elder Tony Belcourt has seen it all. Raised in the historic Métis community at Lac Ste. Anne, Alberta, Belcourt quickly learned what Louis Riel realized 100 years earlier, that progress in Métis recognition meant going to one place: Ottawa. As the founding president of the Native Council of Canada, Belcourt took centre stage when the Métis banded together with non-Status Indians to plot a pathway to constitutional recognition in the early 1970s. A decade later, he supported efforts in Ottawa’s “hallowed halls” to convince then–Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau to include the Métis by name in the Constitution Act of 1982. And in 1991 he was there to watch then–Prime Minister Brian Mulroney call for the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, which drew public attention to the demands of the Métis, First Nations, and Inuit.

Despite having earned his retirement after more than 50 years of political wins and setbacks, Belcourt has scarcely slowed down. After 14 years as the first president of the Métis Nation of Ontario, he took his cause abroad, representing the Métis National Council at the United Nations, where he participated in the negotiations that resulted in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). Today, with legislation   recognizing the Métis right to self-government nearing passage in Parliament (Bill C-53), Belcourt is once again urging Ottawa to do the right thing. In this episode, host David Wylynko talks with Belcourt about his memories and concerns, which include seeing Harry Daniels proclaim “I will mobilize my people” as he walked out on the 1982 Constitutional negotiations with then–Indian Affairs Minister Jean Chrétien, his disappointment in the Pope’s visit to his hometown in 2022, and his wish to see the Métis become once again amicable with their age-old Indigenous cousins.

Resources

Métis National Council at crossroads as it marks 40-year anniversary (CBC News)

Bill C-53: An Act respecting the recognition of certain Métis governments

The True Canadians website

Intro and outro music by Métis musician Alex Kusturok

Opening quote from an address by Métis leader Jim Sinclair during the 1987 Canadian constitutional talks