Mtis claims in Maritimes leap by thousands

In the three years since the country's top court defined Mtis rights for the first time, thousands of people in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick have come forward to claim Mtis status.

The 2003 Supreme Court of Canada decision, known as thePowley ruling, recognized a community in Ontario as Mtis and gave them the aboriginal right to hunt for food a decision seen as a first step toward granting full aboriginal rights to hunt and fish for food out of season or without a provincial licence.

The New Brunswick Aboriginal Peoples Council estimates 1,000 people have come forward in recent years claiming Mtisstatus.

In Nova Scotia, the claims have risen in the province to 8,000 from about 4,000 five years earlier, according to the Confederacy of Nova Scotia Mtis.

Paul Ross, a spokesman for the confederacy, said he doesn't believe the rise in claims has anything to do with the landmark Supreme Court decision, which was specific to a Mtis community in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont.

"Everybody in this area is Mtis," said Ross. "We just want to be recognized as Mtis here in Nova Scotia."

'Historic Mtis nation' ranges from Ontario to B.C.

Just because someone has made a claim to be recognized as Mtis doesn't mean they are Mtis, said Tony Belcourt, who is withthe Mtis National Council.

"They're certainly not affiliated with what we call the historic Mtis nation in what we call our homeland, from Ontario to B.C.," Belcourt said.

Under the council's definition, people areMtis if they self-identify as such, are of historic Mtis nation ancestry and are accepted by the Mtis Nation.

Therights of around 300,000 Mtis people in Canada, who have mixed aboriginal and non-aboriginal ancestry, have never been defined under the 1982 Constitution.

Visibility, decline in racism may be factors

Bradford Morse, an aboriginal law instructor at the University of Ottawa, said the Powley decision is likely only one of the reasons why people in the Maritimes are declaring themselves Mtis.

"Part of it is influenced by the visibility the media gives to Mtis rights, part of it is a function of increased programs and services being available for Mtis," said Morse.

He said it's also possible some people are willing to declare themselves Mtis because there's less racial discrimination now than there was years ago.