The True Canadians – Détails, épisodes et analyse

The high cost of housing is a challenge for most Canadians. But it can be particularly difficult for the Métis, many of whom can’t draw on the support that a long family history of home ownership can provide. Others grew up without the benefit of access to quality housing whatsoever. It’s a problem that extends back to the “road allowance” days, when Métis were forced off their land and forced to live in areas set aside for future road construction. Building a sense of community can only do so much if you don’t have a comfortable place to live.

But today, the Otipemisiwak Metis Government — the government of the Métis Nation within Alberta — is providing safe, adequate, and suitable housing through mortgage assistance, subsidies, affordable rent, and other programs. Two agencies administer the programs: Métis Capital and Métis Urban Housing. In this episode, Violet LaPratt, tenant relations officer for the Métis Urban Housing Corporation, tells host David Wylynko about the opportunities available for those requiring assistance. They also explore Violet’s own living situation growing up, how important the Métis homeland in Alberta has been to her family, and the value of pride in home ownership.

Resources

• Métis Capital Housing Corporation
• Métis Urban Housing
• 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

North America’s bison, once numbering in the millions, were facing extinction due to European colonialism, commercial hunting, government policy, and industrialization. At their lowest point, only a few hundred remained. We may never see the enormous herds that blackened the Prairies again, but there is one place where you can witness these majestic animals up close, amidst efforts to restore their populations and celebrate their historical significance: the “Visions, Hopes, and Dreams at Métis Crossing Wildlife Park.” Sitting on the northern shore of the North Saskatchewan River about a one-hour drive northeast of Edmonton, Métis Crossing has become a renowned Indigenous tourism destination, known for the bison and many other wondrous attributes. 

In this episode, host David Wylynko discusses the cultural importance, reintroduction, and intriguing behaviour of the bison with two people who were instrumental in bringing them back: Métis Crossing CEO Juanita Marois and rancher Len Hrehorets. They also talk about how the bison have become an important example of fostering reconciliation between the Métis and the rest of the country.

Notes

Métis Crossing

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

The True Canadians, both the podcast and book, relies on Métis people to tell their own stories. But educating Canadians and advancing recognition and reconciliation won’t be complete until those stories are shared much more widely. Which is where Historica Canada can plays a big role. To find out how this national charitable organization, which uses rigorous research to explain “what it means to be Canadian,” approaches its responsibility to tell the story of the Métis, who better to ask than Anthony Wilson-Smith? 

A former journalist whose column appeared for years in Maclean’s magazine, Wilson-Smith is the CEO and president of Historica Canada. In this episode, Wilson-Smith talks with host David Wylynko about how successive prime ministers interacted with the Métis, First Nations, and Inuit, and how Canada’s attitude has evolved from dismissive, to paternalistic, to an acceptance of the need for the real changes represented by Bill C-53, which recognizes Métis self-government. He describes the impact of the organization’s vast and growing library that is The Canadian Encyclopedia, and touches on the highly lauded Heritage Minutes that appear on television. Wilson-Smith stresses the importance of changing the request often made of Indigenous peoples to just forget about the past to one in which everyone else is asked to just remember it. 

 Notes

Historica Canada

The Canadian Encyclopedia

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

In the fall of 2003, in what would become known as a “watershed” moment for the Métis, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that when Steve Powley and his son Roddy shot a bull moose 10 years earlier near Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, they were exercising their Métis right to hunt, as protected by section 35 of the Constitution Act of 1982.

In the fourth episode of The True Canadians, the Podcast, Métis lawyer Jason Madden characterizes the decision of the top court in the land as a “sea change” that would set the Métis on a journey to many other legal successes. 

The episode is the second of a special two-part segment that host David Wylynko recorded with Madden, who in part 1 examines Métis progress in negotiating self-government agreements with Canada in recent years. In part 2, Jason traces Métis political history and the struggle for what he calls “a way into Canada” that culminated in Métis recognition in the Constitution Act of 1982. Madden explores the significance of the first ministers’ conferences convened in the 1980s by then–Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, the Supreme Court Powley decision of 2003, and of other milestones in the ongoing Métis journey toward a true nation-to-nation relationship with Canada.

Notes

Jason Madden, partner at Aird & Birlis

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

Supreme Court declares Indigenous child welfare law constitutional (CBC News)

The True Canadians website

In the third episode of The True Canadians, host David Wylynko talks with Métis lawyer Jason Madden, who practices Aboriginal law with a focus on Indigenous rights litigation and negotiations, including the negotiation and implementation of self-government agreements, modern day treaties, and reconciliation-based agreements. 

A graduate of Osgoode Hall Law School at York University and called to the bar in Ontario, Alberta, the Northwest Territories and the Yukon, Jason is a partner at the law firm Aird & Berlis LLP and Co-Leader of the firm’s Indigenous Practice Group.

Jason was born and raised in northern Ontario and his large Métis family—the Calders—are a part of the Northwest Ontario Métis community, which collectively adhered to Treaty No 3 in 1875 as the ‘Halfbreeds of Rainy Lake and River.’ Over the last 20 years, Jason has been legal counsel to Métis communities and governments in Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta, including acting as counsel in Métis harvesting rights case and appearing in all the cases dealing with Métis rights before the Supreme Court of Canada. 

In this episode, Jason undertakes a wide-ranging discussion about inherent Métis rights and self-government, which have become particularly topical in the mainstream media in recent weeks due to major developments in federal legislation currently before Parliament about Métis self-government known as Bill C-53 and a major Supreme Court decision over an existing federal law about Indigenous child and family services, both of great importance to the Métis. Jason talks about how these pieces of legislation will help extract the Métis from the “legal lacuna” (legal gap) they have experienced for generations, and how they will lead to ending the pattern of governments making promises and overtures to the Métis only to pull away the proverbial football as Lucy so famously always did to Charlies Brown in the cartoon “Peanuts.”

Jason Madden, partner at Aird & Birlis

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

Supreme Court declares Indigenous child welfare law constitutional (CBC News)

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

From her small home community of Lac La Biche, Alberta, to the academic halls of the University of Calgary, to Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Rebecca Lavallee has taken huge leaps forward in a very short timespan. In the second episode of The True Canadians, host David Wylynko talks with Rebecca about the importance of family and community in fostering Métis youth with confidence and pride. These attributes help cure young people of the crippling effects of “imposter syndrome,” and can steer them away from the negative impacts of burying one’s heritage.

This support helped Rebecca make the move to a big-city university, where she often found herself to be the lone Indigenous student of her classes. It also gave her the strength of character that led to her new position as the Provincial Youth Representative in the recently created Otipemisiwak Métis Government. In that capacity, Rebecca travelled to Ottawa and attended hearings held by the Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on Bill C-53, which recognizes Métis rights of self-government. For young Métis citizens like Rebecca, it’s just the beginning.

Notes

Bill C-53: An Act respecting the recognition of certain Métis governments, and to give effect to treaties with those governments and to make consequential amendments to other Acts

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

In the first episode of The True Canadians, host David Wylynko talks with Andrea Sandmaier, President of the Otipemisiwak Métis Government of the Métis Nation within Alberta, and Audrey Poitras, who recently retired as president. Sandmaier and Poitras share their views on the historic Métis journey toward legal recognition of their right to self-government, including the landmark legislation now before Parliament, Bill C-53. Sandmaier explains how important the legislation is to the Métis who have waited lifetimes for this right to be enshrined in law. 

Among the stories the two Métis leaders share is one involving Angie Crerar, an elder who journeyed from her home in Grande Prairie, Alberta, to address the federal Standing Committee on Indigenous and Northern Affairs in Ottawa. Crerar stood in front of the committee and talked about her own father, who hoped that, some day, this acknowledgment would come. “Some day is now,” says Sandmaier. Bill C-53 fulfills the constitutional promise of Section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982, the 40th anniversary of which The True Canadians, the book, was written to commemorate. 

Notes

Bill C-53: An Act respecting the recognition of certain Métis governments, and to give effect to treaties with those governments and to make consequential amendments to other Acts

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

For over two centuries, the Métis have fought for recognition as an Indigenous people and as a Nation. It’s a story worth telling, but until recently, it hasn’t been heard enough.

The title of this podcast and the book refers to the fact that the Métis truly are people born of this land — well before Canada became a country of its own. 

Your host is David Wylynko, a media consultant, writer, former journalist, and co-author of The True Canadians. His co-author, Patricia Russell, is a Métis writer and a former CBC journalist. While they were touring the country to promote their book, they discovered that readers wanted to know more about the people, places, events, and milestones they've featured in the pages of The True Canadians. A podcast seemed to be the best way to share what they’ve learned.

Find out more about the book at The True Canadians website.

Intro and outro music performed by Métis musician Alex Kusturok.

Civilization is going to need to burn fossil fuels for a little while longer. The only real questions are how much longer — and how to make the transition to renewable power. Overseeing the contribution that the Métis Nation of Alberta will make to that transition is Andres Filella. Born and raised in Ecuador, Filella moved to Edmonton for a degree in chemical engineering and then worked on greenhouse gas emissions in the oil and gas sector before switching to the Otipemisiwak Métis Government, where he now leads a 20-member Environment and Climate Team. Their biggest project so far is the Salay Prayzaan Solar Farm at Métis Crossing, which had its opening celebration and ribbon-cutting ceremony in June of 2024. The name means “gift from the sun” in Michif. The 5 megawatts of electricity it generates is enough to power 1,200 homes, making it the largest Indigenous-run solar solar installation in Canada.

In this episode of The True Canadians, Filella explains to host David Wylynko how he and his team are applying the Indigenous concept of “askiy” — Cree for “interconnected Earth” — to tackling climate change and other environmental challenges. Turns out there’s a significant difference between askiy and conventional Western approaches to the relationship between humans and nature.

More information

• Salay Prayzaan: Métis Crossing Solar Project (YouTube)
• The True Canadians book
• 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

“If somebody that’s been trained four times how to use an AK-47 is a couple of hundred yards from you, and they are trying to shoot you, you get shot.” Not exactly what a young NATO peacekeeper wants to hear. But like countless Métis who have found themselves in the middle of wars over the centuries, retired Sgt. Chuck Isaacs has learned a few things as a member of the Canadian Forces.

Métis fought in the American Revolutionary War and the US Civil War. They did their duty in the Balkans and Afghanistan, and in every major war in between. By all accounts, Métis and other Indigenous Canadians are over-represented in Canada’s roll call of veterans. There’s even a separate Remembrance Day for them: November 8. But their record of service is rarely acknowledged by the broader public. As president of the Aboriginal Veterans Society of Alberta and the Métis Veterans Council of Alberta, Isaacs would like to change that. In this episode of The True Canadians, he explains what it would take to make that happen, and shares some of his experiences as one of those NATO peacekeepers who helped rebuild what used to be Yugoslavia in the 1990s.

Notes

• Canada’s Aboriginal Veterans
• Returning Indigenous soldiers lack support in Alberta, says veterans organization (CBC News)
• 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