Métis Nation - Saskatchewan v Provincial Métis Council

These proceedings were initiated by Métis Nation – Saskatchewan (MNS) after the federal Minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada suspended funding to MNS on the basis that MNS's Legislative Assembly had not held any Métis Nation Legislative Assemblies, as required by its Constitution, since November 2010. Under MNS’s Constitution, two sessions of the MNLA and one General Assembly must be held each year, and the PMC must set the date and place for sessions of the MNLA. The PMC consists of 18 elected members who act as the “cabinet” of the MNLA, and its members include four executive members of MNS who are elected by the MNS membership at large, 12 members who are elected to represent regions, and one representative from each of the Métis Women of Saskatchewan and Métis Youth.

There are two factions within the PMC, one consisting of the President, Robert Doucette, the Treasurer and the Secretary (the “Doucette faction”), and the other consisting of the Vice President, Gerald Morin, and 11 other members (the “Morin faction”). As a result of the Morin faction’s majority numbers, it controlled the PMC’s ability to assemble a quorum and decide matters. The Morin faction was concerned with the executive’s financial management of MNS and lack of reporting to the PMC on financial matters, and had previously attempted (unsuccessfully) to take control of the financial management of MNS through a resolution it sought to enforce through a court proceeding. The PMC had not held a meeting since February 2013 because of a dispute between the two factions as to whether the authority to call meetings of the PMC and set the agenda lay with the President or the executive as a whole.

The Doucette faction had been avoiding the dispute taking place within the PMC by having the President administer the affairs of MNS as the elected executive and without recourse to the PMC. However, this strategy of avoidance was no longer possible when the Minister cut off funding to MNS. In order to maintain funding, President Doucette had been seeking to call a PMC meeting with the sole agenda item of calling for an MNLA since May 2014, but the Morin faction would not attend any PMC meetings called by President Doucette. The Morin faction took the position before the Court that they would only attend a PMC meeting if it was understood that a majority of the PMC’s members at the meeting would determine the agenda, as they wished to impose financial reporting, accountability measures and other measures on the executive.

As neither the MNS or MNLA had authorized these proceedings, the Court dealt with the issue of standing by allowing President Doucette to be substituted for the originally named plaintiffs in this action, acting as a representative of MNS. The Court expressed the view that as a member of the executive of MNS President Doucette had the standing to bring representative proceedings to enforce “constitutionally based rights or duties of other members of the organization” – that is to say, rights or duties arising from MNS’s Constitution. It also held that although courts are generally reluctant to intervene in the internal affairs of voluntary organizations, the matters at issue in this application have a significant impact on a significant number of people. The Court also noted that MNS’s Constitution creates rights and duties, and where these are breached there must be a remedy.

When addressing the test for whether an injunction ought to be ordered, the Court questioned whether it would be sufficient for the applicant to merely show that there was a “serious question to be tried” in order to satisfy the need for the injunction, since the injunction would interfere in matters of political or democratic choice for MNS and the mandatory injunction would alter the status quo pending trial as opposed to preserving it. However, the Court found that in this case even a higher test, such as establishing a prima facie case, would have been met by the applicant. The Court found prima facie proof that the PMC had breached its constitutionally mandated duty to schedule two meetings of the MNLA each year, and held that it did not need to decide who was responsible for this breach. The Court also found that irreparable harm had clearly resulted from the breach both due to the Minister’s suspension of funding to MNS and the delay or denial of the opportunity for MNS members to exercise rights of democratic decision-making through sessions of the MNLA.

On the other hand, the Court expressed the need to ensure that the relief it ordered did not “compromise the ability of factions and individuals to advance their policy and political agendas” so long as they adhered to constitutional requirements in doing so, and it therefore crafted a remedy that was no broader than necessary to enforce performance of the constitutional duty that applies to all members of the PMC. The Court ordered President Doucette to give notice of a meeting of the PMC, but left it to members of the PMC to determine issues such as the agenda at the meeting and by majority vote.