{"id":656411,"date":"2026-05-08T17:30:17","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T17:30:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/656411\/"},"modified":"2026-05-08T17:30:17","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T17:30:17","slug":"manitoba-metis-ask-canada-to-defund-metis-national-council","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/656411\/","title":{"rendered":"Manitoba M\u00e9tis ask Canada to defund M\u00e9tis National Council"},"content":{"rendered":"

The M\u00e9tis National Council is facing financial collapse after an Ontario judge ordered the group to pay nearly $12 millon in court costs to former leaders, staff and consultants the MNC tried to sue, alleging misuse of funds.<\/p>\n

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In a years-long legal battle that included a nine-week trial, a judge found no evidence of wrongdoing on the part of any defendant and dismissed the case in November 2025. Earlier this week, she awarded costs of $11.8 million to the defendants.<\/p>\n

Manitoba M\u00e9tis Federation President David Chartrand is one of the defendants and says the ordeal should be the end of the MNC.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s about $20 million that MNC incurred and pushed [the lawsuit] down the road for vengeance and vindictiveness,\u201d Chartrand said.<\/p>\n

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\u201cAt the end of the day, the lawyers are the winners, but at the end of the day, the people are the losers. Our M\u00e9tis citizens are the ones that lose.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The last five years have been tumultuous for the MNC, losing three of the five provincial M\u00e9tis governments that were under the MNC umbrella in its heyday as the national representative body for M\u00e9tis.<\/p>\n

Manitoba, B.C. and Saskatchewan left over disputes about who is and isn\u2019t M\u00e9tis. Only the Alberta and Ontario organizations stayed.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt does not have legitimacy,\u201d Chartrand said. \u201cI think the question will be to Canada, how can they continue to fund an organization that\u2019s not legitimate?\u201d<\/p>\n

The Manitoba M\u00e9tis Federation has positioned itself as the national body to represent M\u00e9tis interests but not everyone agrees that\u2019s the solution.<\/p>\n

Indigenous Services Canada said in an emailed statement that \u201cCanada remains committed to funding Indigenous organizations, including the M\u00e9tis National Council, to support initiatives that benefit M\u00e9tis citizens.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCanada will continue to diligently observe the situation and ensure it remains well informed, while refraining from any decisions that would be premature or unduly reactive,\u201d it added.<\/p>\n

The MNC said in a statement that they \u201cdisagree with both the outcome and the characterization of the case\u201d but \u201crespect the Court\u2019s process.\u201d<\/p>\n

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It is appealing the judgment and insists it remains the national voice for M\u00e9tis.<\/p>\n

It has asked Ottawa for nearly $7 billion in funding over the next 10 years.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t&copy 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The M\u00e9tis National Council is facing financial collapse after an Ontario judge ordered the group to pay nearly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":656412,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[49,48,243141,136975,243142,44],"class_list":["post-656411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-manitoba-metis-ask-ottawa-to-defund-metis-national-council","tag-manitoba-metis-federation","tag-metis-national-council","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=656411"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656411\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/656412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=656411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=656411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=656411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}