Metis Nation of Ontario

[debbieredbear]

I'm in a Facebook group called Metis Families, started by the late Gail Morin. Gail was a genealogist (and married to my late husband's cousin) who wrote many many books on Metis people.  The consensus of the group is that the Metis Nation of Ontario is that they are pretendians. Their genealogies don't show any relationship to Metis people.  Metis people in Canada are a pretty specific bunch.

[Sparks]

(discussion on the Metis Nation of Ontario https://www.tvo.org/article/what-is-the-metis-nation-of-ontario-and-why-is-it-so-controversial)

A long and thorough 2023 article with several illuminating clckable links. I couldn't find anything better on the topic.

About the entity that published the article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TVO

TVO (stylized in all lowercase as tvo), formerly known as TVOntario, is a Canadian publicly funded English-language educational television network and media organization serving the Canadian province of Ontario.

[debbieredbear]

I think they do merit their own thread. Apparently,  many of their members have no Indigenous ancestry. Also, having Indigenous ancestry does not mean a person is Metis. Metis is a very specific identity, rooted historically with French and Scottish fur traders who married Chippewa and Cree women. But that's not all. There are also ties to the Red River area and followers of Lois Riel. My late husband's father fit all the criteria,  even though he was enrolled in the Turtle Mountain Chippewa tribe in North Dakota. That's how I got on the Metis Families Facebook page.