Du camouflage à l'affirmation identitaire: Le cas des Métis de St. Laurent et St. Lazare au Manitoba

Abstract

This research work, from a qualitative research perspective, through individual and collective interviews, coupled with long field practice for professional reasons, takes two horizons: On the one hand, it revisits the historical, sociopolitical and socio-economic aspects of the identity dispossession of the Métis of Saint-Laurent and Saint-Lazare, and, on the other hand, it puts forward the supports for identity renewal, for the identity affirmation of these Métis. From this study, it emerges that the Métis of St. Laurent and St. Lazare were perceived by non-Métis as a withdrawn, hesitant, and suspicious people. Many of them, overtly or subtly, hid or denied their Métis identity in reaction to the negative stereotypes and discrimination of which they were victims (Séraphin, 2015). But for several decades there has been a surge of affirmation of their identity, a sort of identity renewal among these Métis of Manitoba. The expression of their collective identity and their cultural identity has become increasingly evident in everyday life in St. Laurent and St. Lazare since 1982. The affirmation of Métis identity, with diverse foundations, seems to be a perpetual battle on several fronts (Teillet, 2019). In this, today’s Métis seem determined to go as far as asserting their identity, maintaining and preserving it. Essentially, the affirmation of identity is read through:

Their mention among the Indigenous Peoples of Canada in the 1982 Constitution; the Powley decision of 2003 which gives them back their right to harvest for domestic use. Added to this is the legal victory of the Manitoba Métis Federation (MMF) in 2013 over the federal government for the promise of land to the Métis that was not kept in 1870; the Daniels Decision of 2016 which makes Métis “Indians”; the rehabilitation of Louis Riel in 1992 and culture (education, festivals, dances, Michif, etc.). As for the factors of the identity dispossession of the Métis in our study, they were based on: Their non-official recognition in the Constitution of 1867, the hanging of Louis Riel in 1885; the loss of their land and policies of discrimination (Sealey, 1975; Carter 1999; Nicole St Onge, 2004; Goulet, 2011).