There is no evidence a former Métis National Council (MNC) administration engaged in scorched earth political warfare to harm the organization and empower the Manitoba Métis Federation (MMF) before the federation withdrew from the council in 2021, an Ontario court heard Monday.
The MMF and its long-time president David Chartrand are mounting their defence this week in Toronto, as a lawsuit launched by a successor administration moves through a nine-week trial.
During the plaintiff’s opening statement last month, MNC alleged Chartrand and MNC’s then-president Clément Chartier created a “shadow government” at the organization, using secret meetings and self-dealing to unjustly enrich themselves in a plot to give MMF the upper hand.
In reply, Rahool Agarwal, of Lax O’Sullivan Lisus Gottlieb in Toronto, called these allegations inflammatory and damaging, particularly when levelled against Indigenous leaders using public money.
But most importantly, he argued, there isn’t a single document evidencing the claims first made in 2022.
“We are now at trial over three years later, and there is no evidence of a scorched earth policy. No evidence in the plaintiff’s case, and you won’t see any such evidence in the defendants’ case,” Agarwal told the Ontario Superior Court of Justice.
“Instead, in stark contrast, what you have seen is that the defendants left the Métis National Council in as strong a position as it ever had been in, with millions of committed funding in perpetuity.”
The defence’s first witness is expected to be Chartrand, MMF president since 1997, who previously told CBC Indigenous all the allegations are false and will be proven so.
The statement of claim accuses him, the MMF and Chartier of improperly channeling MNC assets to the MMF, facilitating lucrative payouts to consultants and spending lavishly on benefits and gifts for themselves, including a $4,000 gold watch for Chartier and allegedly excessive payments to Chartrand’s wife.
Civil war or existential crisis?
MNC’s lawyer Robert Cohen framed these events as a “political civil war.” He suggested Chartier and Chartrand used a long-standing Indigenous identity dispute with the Métis Nation of Ontario (MNO) as a pretext to advance their own political interests.
Agarwal rejected that, saying the events unfolded during both an unprecedented breakthrough with the government of Canada and an existential crisis sparked by MNO’s announcement of six new historic Métis communities in 2017.
The MMF and First Nations in Ontario reject the communities, and Agarwal said MNO’s refusal to clean up its membership registry posed a threat to Métis national integrity.
“Métis identity goes to the heart of the Métis Nation and their ongoing struggle to find their rightful place in the Canadian Confederation,” he said.
Agarwal described the allegedly excessive severance payouts as proper and reasonable recognition for consultants who dedicated their lives to the council but feared a new administration would fire them.
As far as political warfare goes, the lawyer accused Chartrand and Chartier’s adversaries of cooking up the claim by stringing together a handful of disconnected but honest decisions out of hundreds made while steering through these turbulent waters.
“To say it was a civil war is just wrong and really a disservice to the Métis people. President Chartier and President Chartrand were not engaged in warfare,” he said.
“They were doing what they believed in their hearts as Métis Nation patriots was right and what also they were obligated to do as leaders of the Métis National Council. They were protecting the integrity of the Métis Nation.”
MNC’s then-executive director Wenda Watteyne and several consultants were also named as defendants. The council seeks $15 million in damages, $1 million in punitive damages and return of certain disputed assets.
More than 1,200 exhibits were already submitted, and the trial has provided a rare look inside operations at the two formerly allied entities during recent years of turmoil.
MMF co-founded MNC in 1983 to advocate for Métis constitutional rights, but broke away in September 2021, citing the “eastern invasion” from Ontario. The Métis Nation–Saskatchewan, another co-founder, left last year. British Columbia followed.
The now two-member MNC rested its case last week following subpoenaed testimony from federal Veterans Affairs officials.
A senior civil servant testified Friday the department was immediately concerned when it learned MNC gave MMF control over nearly $9 million in public money earmarked for the recognition of Métis Second World War veterans.
Agarwal argued Tuesday it was always understood the bigger and better-resourced MMF would administer the program, an arrangement he said the disputed agreement only formalized.
Former MNC president Cassidy Caron will testify for the plaintiff later in the trial.