A national chief’s remarks on Métis identity have reopened bitter divisions and put unresolved identity disputes back into the spotlight.
Canada’s control over who is classified as a status Indian under the Indian Act has led to the creation of “a big group” of Métis people who “probably have First Nations roots,” Assembly of First Nations National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak said last week.
Some people are claiming Métis identity only to obtain harvesting cards in order to hunt and fish, she said.
“There’s a lot of confused people out there who are claiming to be Indigenous, a lot of pretendians, and then a whole group of everybody else who says, ‘I’m Métis,'” the national chief said.
Métis leaders condemned the remarks, including Manitoba Métis Federation President David Chartrand, who said Woodhouse Nepinak questioned the existence of the Red River Métis. He also called her comments “racist,” as the Métis are included in Section 35 of Canada’s Constitution, which recognizes and affirms Aboriginal rights.
But Jean Teillet, a retired Indigenous rights lawyer and the great-grandniece of Métis leader Louis Riel, said the term “Métis” has gained a broad definition over the years.
“The word ‘Métis’ itself is very confusing and has been used in multiple different ways over time,” Teillet told CBC News from Vancouver on Monday.
Some people or communities with First Nations ancestry might claim Métis identity because they don’t feel accepted as First Nations, she said.
National chief makes controversial remarks about Métis identity
“The Red River Métis want to claim it all to themselves and say, ‘No, no, we’re the only Métis.’ I personally think that horse left the barn a long time ago.”
While Teillet was disappointed to hear the national chief’s comments, she said there “really is a problem in eastern Canada with people who are claiming to be Indigenous.”
She calls it a form of “reverse assimilation” wherein “middle-class white folks” masquerade as Indigenous people, which she described as a late stage of colonialism.
Teillet said the problem and the harm it causes are only growing.
“They’re taking the jobs, they’re taking the spotlight, they’re taking all the money that good-meaning governments think they’re setting aside for Indigenous people.”
There needs to be deep discussion on what factors into Indigenous legitimacy, and what standards determine what an Indigenous entity is, and then “you can talk about proper labelling for that entity,” Teillet said.
“But I think if you start with the labelling, whether it’s Métis or First Nation, then you’re just arguing back and forth in the air, and you’re not really looking at the factors you need to be looking at in order to have that discussion,” she said.
“Nobody’s doing that work, as far as I can see…. There is an issue here, and it really does need to be addressed by multiple actors and multiple institutions.”
CBC News has not been able to reach Woodhouse Nepinak for comment on this story.
The national chief’s comments would not have “stirred as much controversy” had she been more specific, Teillet said.
“It would have been helpful if she had excluded the Métis Nation and the Red River Métis from that. It would have been helpful if she had also acknowledged that the claims are not restricted to Métis.”
The dispute comes after years of infighting between Métis groups in Canada over who qualifies.
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The MMF left the Métis National Council in 2021, citing a long-running Indigenous identity dispute with the Métis Nation of Ontario, which the MMF claimed had “nearly 80 per cent non-Métis Nation Citizens in their registry” at the time.
The Métis Nation-Saskatchewan and the Métis Nation British Columbia both left the national council in 2024.
The Métis Nation of Ontario was put on a one-year probation by the national council in 2018, and was suspended in January 2020 over a perceived lack of adherence to the national council’s definition of citizenship, adopted in 2002.
According to the national council, “Métis” means someone who has ancestors connected to the historic Métis Nation, whose residents lived in the historic Métis Nation homeland.
Woodhouse Nepinak’s remarks also echo what First Nations chiefs have claimed about the Métis Nation of Ontario in recent years.
The Chiefs of Ontario, a political organization representing the 133 First Nations, accused the Métis Nation of Ontario last year of signing up new members with promises of citizenship and harvesting rights in areas where “there has never been any historic Métis community.”
In a June 2025 news release, it also accused the Métis Nation of Ontario of relying on false claims to “artificially inflate” its membership with people who are “descendants of non-status First Nations, not Métis citizens.”
Assembly of First Nations chief’s comments on Métis identity ‘racist’: federation president
Not all Indigenous people in Canada have Indian status. There are many non-status Indians who, for a multitude of reasons, are not entitled to be registered as Indians under the act.
A 2025 report, commissioned by the national council in 2021, found “new historic communities” recognized by the Métis Nation of Ontario and Ontario’s government in 2017 met the council’s national definition for Métis citizenship.
The MMF, the Métis Nation-Saskatchewan and the Métis Nation B.C. rejected the report’s findings, while the Chiefs of Ontario also denounced it as misinformation.
The national chief’s remarks on the Métis were in response to a question about abolishing the Indian Act, which Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew had called for during the historic meeting between Canada’s first ministers and First Nations leaders on Oct. 26.
Veldon Coburn, an associate professor and faculty chair of the Indigenous Relations Initiative at McGill University, said it’s unfortunate “offhand remarks” by Kinew and Woodhouse Nepinak dominated discussions after the meeting, which was the first in two decades.
Coburn, who is Anishinaabe and a member of the Algonquins of Pikwà kanagà n in eastern Ontario, said Kinew’s call to abolish the Indian Act was “a really glib remark and a bit of a performative stunt that accomplished nothing” and diluted the focus of the meeting.
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While he “did cringe a little bit” when listening to Woodhouse Nepinak’s remarks on the Métis, Coburn added the national chief’s intention might have gotten lost since she was speaking “off the cuff.”
“I’m going to give a charitable interpretation and read into it that the identity of Métis is being used by all sorts of pretendians, as she mentions,” Coburn told CBC News on Friday.
Because Woodhouse Nepinak’s comments were inappropriately and “bluntly” phrased, they could be seen as “definitely denigrating” and “deeply offensive” to legitimate Red River Métis citizens, he said.
But Coburn said there are some groups claiming Métis identity to access Indigenous rights using the Supreme Court’s 2003 Powley decision, a landmark ruling on hunting rights that included a legal test and criteria for determining if someone is a Métis rights holder.
Veldon Coburn, faculty chair of the Indigenous Relations Initiative at McGill University, says it’s unfortunate ‘offhand remarks’ dominated discussions after last week’s historic meeting. (McGill University)
Coburn said the test offers a “lesser bar to meet” when it comes to establishing Indigenous identity compared with the criteria applied to First Nations.
“For First Nations, we have to go to great lengths to establish exclusive prior occupancy before contact, but for those that rely upon the Powley decision … it’s a post-contact standard,” he said.
“That mess, developed by the Crown, is something that may have to be worked out diplomatically between First Nations and Métis in Manitoba.”
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Both First Nations and the Métis appear to seek almost unilateral recognition of their rights from the federal government without conversations with one another, Coburn said.
“Some dialogue at a nation-to-nation level is, I think, what’s called for here.”
