Métis federation shameful and opportunistic in bid to crash Kapyong deal, First Nations say

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 30/10/2019 (1885 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA — Winnipeg-area First Nations chiefs are mobilizing against the Manitoba Metis Federation’s “shameful” attempt to hold up the Kapyong Barracks project.

“The MMF is coming out of the bushes and saying they want in on the action,” Swan Lake Chief Francine Meeches wrote in a news release. “This is shameful conduct.”

She was among five of the seven First Nations in the Treaty One area to take aim at the federation over a deal signed in August to transfer most of the barracks lands to the bands for economic development.

The military vacated the site in 2004. Ottawa tried to give the land to Crown corporations, sparking a drawn-out court battle that former prime minister Stephen Harper’s government abandoned in the fall of 2015 over rules that say First Nations have a right to purchase unused federal land to fulfil their treaty quotas.

The federal Liberal government spent years negotiating before signing off on an urban reserve project in August.

As the Free Press first reported, the MMF asked the Federal Court to make sure that deal be quashed or set aside on the basis that Ottawa ignored Métis rights and the MMF’s November 2015 request for consultation.

Peguis Chief Glenn Hudson wrote that “the MMF has no basis for interfering” in the case, calling it “opportunistic.”

The Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs plans to apply for intervener status in the case.

“The Métis are not entitled to interfere in any land settlement reached with the federal government,” Grand Chief Arlen Dumas wrote, saying chiefs have waited long enough and won’t sit idly by.

The release did not include comment from the chiefs of Sagkeeng or Roseau River.

Some of the quoted chiefs claimed the MMF didn’t consult them before filing their court notice, despite the federation saying it did.

Meanwhile, both the federal Justice Department and the federation’s lawyers re-filed requests on Wednesday, asking to put the matter on hold for six months.

A Federal Court judge ruled last Friday that both sides botched the phrasing of the original Oct. 15 joint request. The court has yet to rule on the new request to pause the matter.

dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.ca

Court documents on pausing MMF's Kaypong Barracks case