from the Bullet
"Louis Riel must be smiling." That's the front-page headline in the Winnipeg Free Press two days ago.
It's taken from the response of the head of the Manitoba Métis Federation
to the ruling by the Supreme Court of Canada last Friday that the Canadian
and Manitoba governments abrogated their responsibilities to respect land
rights won by the Métis people when the province was established in 1870.
Louis Riel was one of the leaders of the Métis people during the latter
half of the 19th century. They are the people of mixed European/Indigenous
ancestry in western Canada.
According to the Manitoba Act of 1870, the children of then-Métis residents
were to receive some 1.4 million acres of land. That would have given them
a head start during the rush for prime agricultural land during the
colonial-settler expansion into western Canada that followed the founding
of Canada in 1867. Instead, governments delayed or acted dishonorably,
effectively disenfranchising the Métis claim.
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