My mother, my family, and a card I should have kept private

My mother, my family, and a card I should have kept private

My mother, Joanne, was killed by her partner when I was in my twenties. Nothing that has happened to me since, in business or in politics, comes close to that loss, and our family has never truly healed from it. We all drifted apart. Grief does that to families. Through it all, I leaned on my mother's family.

I start there because nobody can understand what I did about my heritage without understanding that.

Years ago, my mother's brothers showed me their membership cards from the Painted Feather Woodland Métis, a group based in Ontario. The organization is associated with the Ontario Métis Family Records Center Inc. (OMFRC). My uncles told me our family had Aboriginal roots that I had never known about. I jumped at it. Not for a benefit or a career or personal gain. I already had a successful career. I did it for my mom. When you lose a parent the way I lost mine, anything that ties you to her, to her family and to the people she came from, feels like a lifeline. I applied, and I received a card.

I never used it on a tax return. I never put it on a job application. I never received a program, a preference or a dollar because of it. It was about family, and it stayed about family. 

Where I went wrong was letting that private piece of my life follow me into public office. It ended up in official biographies and government material, and I should have kept it where it belonged. When it became clear that recognized Métis governments do not accept Painted Feather's membership, I removed those references and stopped making the claim.

I want to speak directly to President David Chartrand and the citizens of the Manitoba Métis Federation. I have deep respect for the Red River Métis, for your place at the very founding of this province, and for the work the MMF does for its people every day. I never meant to diminish that history or to claim a seat you had not offered me. If my actions caused offence, I am sorry. That was never my intent.

I do have one real frustration with how this story was told.

The CBC published a family tree built from its own research. My cousin, who has spent years tracing our mother's side of the family, offered that work to the reporter. My lawyer later provided a family tree as well. Neither was used, and they never corrected the record. Instead, the story leaned on a family member I have been estranged from since my mother's death. We never had a relationship. I was much older, and our lives went separate ways after that terrible time.

I hold no ill will toward him. Whatever pain he carries from those years, I expect it runs as deep as mine. I will not argue with him in a newspaper.

Some will read this and say it comes too late. That is their right. But I am not asking anyone to call me Métis. I am asking Winnipeggers to understand a son who lost his mother and reached for the nearest thing he could find to her. If that was a mistake, it was a human one, and I own it.

I would rather be judged on what I will do for this city than on how I have tried to heal from the worst day of my life.

Kevin