HARRY
DANIELS, NATIVE LEADER: 1940-2004
He negotiated the inclusion of the Métis in the Constitution
Act in 1982 and twice served as head of their national organization
by ALLISON LAWLOR
The Globe and Mail
Friday, Nov 5, 2004
A flamboyant
and outspoken Métis leader from Saskatchewan, Harry
Daniels shared something more than just a common heritage
with his hero Louis Riel. Both men are credited with having
introduced the rights of the Métis into the Constitution
of Canada.
For Mr.
Riel, it was in 1870 in Section 31 of the Manitoba Act. For
Mr. Daniels, it was 112 years later, in Section 35 of the
Constitution Act, said Paul Chartrand, a law professor at
the University of Saskatchewan and a former commissioner on
the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples.
As president
of the Native Council of Canada (now the Congress of Aboriginal
Peoples), Mr. Daniels played a leading role in ensuring aboriginal
and treaty rights were recognized in the 1982 Constitution
Act and more specifically in negotiating the inclusion of
the Métis into the act.
In the
final hour, Mr. Daniels convinced Jean Chrétien, then
Canada's Attorney-General, and the special Joint Committee
of the Senate and House of Commons on the Constitution, that
it was "good but not good enough" to simply have
the wording "aboriginal peoples of Canada" in the
Constitution. He argued that it must include the specific
wording "the Indian, Inuit and Métis peoples of
Canada." After some last-minute negotiations, Mr. Daniels
got what he wanted.
"This
was the end of five years of hard work," Mr. Daniels
told an audience at a Métis conference held in June
of 2003 in Saskatoon. It would be Mr. Daniels's last public
speech. "What I was fighting for ... was the rights of
the Métis people and their rights in Confederation."
During
the constitutional negotiations, Mr. Daniels was once asked
who a Métis was. He is said to have shot straight up
in his chair: "We know who we are . . . We self-identify,
just like everybody else in this country."
Harry
Daniels was born in a small community on the shores of Long
Lake, about 40 kilometres from Regina. The child of Métis
parents Henry and Emma Daniels, young Harry grew up at a time
when being Métis meant "half-breed." It wasn't
long before he set out to fight for the rights of his people.
After
a couple of years in the navy, the young radical went off
to work for the Company of Young Canadians, a voluntary organization
created in the mid-1960s by the federal government that was
later eventually disbanded.
In the
late 1960s, Mr. Daniels was hired as co-ordinator of field
workers at the Métis Association of Alberta, which
meant travelling throughout the province, often to remote
northern regions to help spread information and foster community
organization.
"He
was a mobilizer," said Tony Belcourt, president of the
Métis Nation of Ontario, remembering the young Mr.
Daniels. "He was super confident and brass as hell."
Mr. Daniels
was hired to replace Maria Campbell, an aboriginal writer,
playwright and filmmaker. She would become his life-long friend
and creative partner. They later wrote a play together called
One More Time.
By 1975, Mr. Daniels was president of the Native Council of
Canada. He led the organization, considered the national voice
for Métis and Non-Status Indian organizations across
Canada, until 1981. He was back at the helm between 1997 and
2000. By that time it had changed its name and was called
the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples.
Not one
to mince words or hold back his thoughts, Mr. Daniels did
not celebrate in 1998 after Jane Stewart, Canada's then minister
of Indian affairs and northern development, read an official
"Statement of Reconciliation" that acknowledged
the damage done to the country's native peoples throughout
history. Heralded as a long-overdue response to the Royal
Commission on Aboriginal Peoples released the previous year,
Mr. Daniels fumed: "This was a shallow and ill-advised
attempt at an apology."
On the
international front, he called on the United Nations to pressure
Canada to meet its obligations to the country's native peoples.
He also participated in various UN initiatives and served
as a director of the World Council of Indigenous Peoples.
His work
took him worldwide and to all regions of the country. When
Pope John Paul II made his historic visit to the Northwest
Territories in 1984, Mr. Daniels greeted him in Yellowknife.
In a gesture of welcome, he took off his jacket and gave it
to the Pope as a gift.
Aside
from his reputation as a masterful storyteller and a quick
wit, Mr. Daniels's trademark was the black flat-crown hat
he always wore. The hat was the kind Métis men used
to wear when they went out on the buffalo hunt, Ms. Campbell
said.
Mr. Daniels
was also a TV and stage actor. He played Gabriel Dumont in
a sweeping historical miniseries called Big Bear, which aired
on CBC-TV in the late 1990s.
In March,
the Métis National Council honoured Mr. Daniels when
they presented him with the "Order of the Métis
Nation." In June, he received an honorary doctorate from
the University of Ottawa.
Harry
Daniels was born on Sept. 16, 1940, in Regina Beach, Sask.,
and died on Sept. 6 in Regina.
He was 63. He leaves his partner Cheryl Storkson and children
Michael, Conway, Alexander, Gabriel, Chantelle and Chigal. |
