Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My name is Keith Henry. I'm the president of the BC Métis Federation. I'm coming to you today from Vancouver on the shared territory of the Musqueam, Squamish and the Tsleil-Waututh people.

Our organization has been in existence since 2011. Today, we represent roughly 6,000 Métis individuals with ties to their Métis ancestry through their scrip records or what we continue to help people understand as the existence of the Métis in the Pacific northwest.

Today, we have roughly 10 partner community organizations. We're a provincial Métis organization. We have a significant amount of work in the area of economic development, which is very important as I watch this committee review and consider the work you're doing as it relates to indigenous procurement.

It's important to note that a lot of the things we do today are driven by our economic development work. We work with several partners. We have several Métis businesses in British Columbia. The revenues that we realize are reinvested into areas where we feel government funding has been woefully inadequate, whether federal or provincial.

Last year, our organization, with partners and Métis businesses, realized $4.6 million, and most of that money was reinvested into the infrastructure for our partner communities, for cultural programming and cultural events throughout the province, and of course for key social and economic programs like food security and things like the emergency assistance program. Many of our elders and individuals are dealing with health-related costs that the provincial ministry of health or their health authority simply does not have a program to support.

To give you a bit of context, here's a bit about myself. I'm a Métis person. My family is from.... I've been out in British Columbia for the last 20 plus years. Some of my other family has been out here for 30 to 40 years. I'm originally from around Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. My Métis scrip is from right around Batoche. My family was deeply involved in the historic events of 1885.

Watching the identity politics of a Métis definition running around this country is deeply concerning to me. I worry about the policies of the federal government as they relate to these programs. I worry about the efforts of the Indigenous Services Canada department to minimize...in some cases, maybe properly. However, there are organizations like ours out there that are continuing to address and meet the needs of our Métis people living here in British Columbia.

I won't speak to the validity of other membership processes, but we have a very objectively verifiable process for Métis identity. Information is on our website at bcmetis.com. We have a membership department. We require primary source documentation, no different from anybody else. This growing conversation as it relates to Métis, whether it's indigenous procurement related to Métis businesses or Métis inclusion in the indigenous file, is really deeply concerning to us because, not only does it create challenges among Métis organizations like ours to represent their constituents. The other side of it is that it's really creating a deep division amongst first nations and Métis because there's this ongoing narrative that there is only one type of Métis person.

I'm here to say that's absolutely untrue. We speak different dialects of Métis. Where I grew up in Saskatchewan, my grandparents spoke a French Michif dialect, whereas in northern Saskatchewan it was more of a Cree Michif. We weren't the same people. Maybe we had similar characteristics in some ways, but we were not the same people, although we were tied together by this notion of the Métis Nation.

I urge that, as we think about this, and as you think about this at committee level, you appreciate the diversity of how we organize and have representation of ourselves.

I just will close by saying that I wear many different hats in the indigenous world, and I am aware of the CCIB report on indigenous procurement. I am deeply concerned about the language in some of the work that they're doing—not in the report necessarily but in the business directory.

I am worried about this notion of some sort of Métis validity or unique verification and identified Métis communities that are prioritized by them. It's one of the major issues we brought forward, and we will continue to use the courts to address that issue and will bring Canada to respond in the proper court, where it needs to respond, to address our concerns.

By way of introduction, I'm very proud of a lot of the other work I do.

Thank you very much, Patrick, for the opportunity to make some opening comments.

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