Daniels V. Canada: Métis And Non-Status Indians Fall Under Parliament's Legislative Authority

On April 14, 2016, the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) rendered its decision in Daniels v. Canada (Indian Affairs and Northern Development), 2016 SCC 12.

The Plaintiffs (Appellants) in the case are the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples (a corporation representing Métis and non-status Indian peoples throughout Canada), as well as several individuals identifying as Métis or "non-status Indian" (i.e. persons with Indian heritage that are not recognized by the federal government as registered under the Indian Act, RSC 1985, c I-5). They sought declarations from the SCC that the federal government has legislative authority over Métis and "non-status Indians" pursuant to section 91(24) of the Constitution Act, 1867, that the federal Crown owes a fiduciary duty to the Métis and non-status Indians, and that it must consult these groups on a collective basis concerning all their rights and interests as Aboriginal peoples.

The Plaintiffs had no choice but to initiate legal proceedings because the federal government claimed it was constitutionally precluded to assume legislative authority over Métis and non-status Indians, while the provincial governments also refused to act on the basis that the matter was a federal one. As described by the SCC, this put the Métis and non-status Indians in a sort of "jurisdictional wasteland".

In its decision, the SCC declared that the Métis and non-status Indians were "Indians" within the meaning of section 91(24). However, it declined to grant declarations that the federal government owed these two groups fiduciary duties and consultation obligations under section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982 because these rights and responsibilities were already recognized in law (in cases such as R v. Powley, [2003] 2 SCR 207 and Métis Federation Inc. v. Canada (Attorney General), [2013] 1 SCR 623).

The key principles set out by the SCC in the Daniels decision can be summarized as follows:

The historical, philosophical and linguistic contexts establish that the term "Indians" in section 91(24) includes all Aboriginal peoples, including non-status Indians and Métis (para. 19); The term "Indian" or "Indians" in the constitutional context can have two meanings: a broad meaning, as used in section 91(24), that includes both Métis and Inuit and can be equated with the term "Aboriginal peoples of Canada" used in section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982, and a narrower meaning that distinguishes Indian bands from other Aboriginal peoples...