Metis perspectives on governance : a self-review of the Manitoba Metis Federation's governance practices through the lens of harvesting rights

Good governance at the Métis national level requires grassroots leadership within local communities and that good governance also requires a results- based measures approach to demonstrate accountability and transparency.Specifically, the paper assessed the Manitoba Métis Federation's (MMF's) governance practices and how the MMF provided "good governance" to its membership on important issues that affect the Métis community in Manitoba.In doing so, this involved determining what "good governance" means for the Métis community and how this was interpreted by the Métis political leadership.Furthermore, good governance was assessed in terms of addressing the concerns of the Métis community, both at the grass roots level and at the institutional level.Finally, to examine how a specific policy issue is addressed within this governance framework, this thesis examined the relationship between good governance and harvesting rights, since the issue of harvesting rights is a major and current issue facing the Métis community in Manitoba.and a subsistence-based way of life which was the basis of the fur trade (Madden, Graham & Wilson, 2005,p.12).Since, economics played a major role in expansion of the fur trade and since the Métis were at the heart of the fur trade having played such a pivotal role, the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples explains that:The special qualities and skills of the Métis population made them indispensable members of Aboriginal/non-Aboriginal economic partnerships, ond that association contributed to the shaping of their cultures.Using their lcnowledge of European and Aboriginal languages, their family connections and their wilderness skills, they helped to extend non-Aboriginal contacts deep into the Norîh American interior.As interpreters, diplomats, guides, couriers, freighters, traders and suppliers, the early M,átis people contributed massively to European penetration of North America (Métis Perspectives, 1996, p. I).Historically, a defining characteristic of the Métis is that they have been recognized for their ability to adapt to their surrounding environments in order to sustain themselves, their families, and the community at large.Although many Métis settlements were established at "fixed locations," the fur trade required extensive travel and networking.This translated into "growing kinship connections between the fixed settlements" (Madden et al, 2005,p.I2).As Madden et al argue, the identity of the Métis evolved from "more than just a mixing or adaptation of two divergent cultures.Through a process known as 'ethnogenesis', a distinct Métis culture, language (Michif), dress, music and way of life emerged" (2005, p. 13).Thus, the Métis no longer saw themselves simply "as an extension of Indian or European communities, but as a distinct Aboriginal group who operated and asserted themselves as such" (Madden et al,2005, p. 13).In the midst of the creation

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