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'Growing tension' inside the public service over Indigenous self-identification

You're more of a Ryan Gosling, really.

Ryan Gosling Sunglasses GIF by Warner Bros. Pictures
 
Why in the fuck would you pretend to be something you know you're really not especially when it comes to race????

Really....
Some of it isn't "pretendians" but people incorrectly identifying as Métis. From 2011 to 2016, the population identifying as Métis grew by almost one-third (+30.0%). Going back a little further, census data show the number of people who call themselves Metis soared nearly 150 per cent in Quebec and 125 per cent in Nova Scotia from 2006 to 2016.

However, a lot of these people are not Métis. Métis is a distinct sub-culture of mixed Indigenous and European ancestry from the Prairies and eastern-Ontario. The Métis National Council defines a Métis as "a person who self-identifies as Métis, is distinct from other Aboriginal Peoples, is of historic Métis Nation ancestry and who is accepted by the Métis Nation."

That's 4 requirements. The problem is that for identification purposes, the government only requires the first one; if you say you are Métis, you are Métis. So, a lot of Canadians of mixed European and Indigenous ancestry started calling themselves Métis even though they have absolutely no ties to the Métis community. They are simply using the term Métis as a catchall for "mixed ancestry".

Why are they doing this? This is my theory, and it's completely anecdotal, but it's because people like to feel special and to belong. There are plenty of Canadians of mixed-ancestry who have absolutely zero connection to any First Nation community. Further, they probably have no real interest in re-kindling or developing a relationship with their ancestral First Nation community; they have gone "native" as it were. So, Métis is the easy button for them. They get to identify as a "special" group of people and wear it like a badge without having to do any actual work or change their own persona culture in any way. For example, I recently found out a whole bunch of peers of mine who for years I just thought of as "white European Canadians" actually had mixed Indigenous ancestry. They looked white and their culture was "modern Anglo-Canadian", but they identified themselves as Métis simply because they had some indigenous ancestry somewhere in their past. One even got a giant Métis tattoo, even though they literally have zero connection to the actual Métis nation out west, and zero involvement or interaction with any indigenous people/groups out east.

 
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