Photo courtesy of abo-peoples.org
A large group of urban Aboriginal people in the Edmonton area is rolling out the red carpet for the Vice Chief of the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples.
Kim Beaudin has been invited to provide an update on recent Supreme Court rulings on how they impact Metis and non-status Indian rights.
He says Indigenous Affairs Canada has been holding informational meetings around the country, but not everyone is getting to them, and there is still a lot of confusion. He says he hopes to clear some of that up.
“That’s exactly the plan, to get them in the loop,” he said. “Because I find that information, and education is important, and a lot of them don’t understand the process that INAC is going through.”
He says another big issue in the area is the Michel Band. It was disenfranchised, and its existence was denied following a court challenge in 2008.
Beaudin says that amounted to the federal government going to the courts to rewrite history.
In April of 2014, the Supreme Court recognized Metis rights under the constitution and ruled they were the responsibility of the federal government.