“You don’t set up the criteria, have people apply and then say, ‘Oops, too many people applied so we’re going to change the rules.’ That’s simply not fair.” Hector Pearce Newfoundlander who has found his Mi’kmaq roots

Hector Pearce found the link to his aboriginal ancestry on a tombstone near Bonne Bay, a stunning inlet in Newfoundland’s Gros Morne National Park.

The dates marking the birth and death of Sarah Welsh confirmed she was Pearce’s great grandmother. They also confirmed she was the granddaughter of John Matthews, a Mi’kmaq Indian born in 1780 in Cape La Hune on the island’s southern coast. Matthews, in other words, was Pearce’s great, great, great grandfather.

The tombstone testified to an Indian bloodline Pearce suspected, for the first time, only five years ago.

“When I was growing up, no one talked about it,” says Pearce, 68. “My grandmother resembled very well a Mi’kmaq in her skin colour and her high cheekbones. But she never mentioned it. And my mother, a very intelligent person who knew all about our family tree and the community’s social history, never spoke of it either.

“Those generations were a bit ashamed to articulate that connection with the Mi’kmaq,” he says in a phone interview from Lewisporte, north of Gander.

Pearce, a retired psychologist, spent six months compiling evidence of his Indian ancestry, including all the birth, death and marriage certificates he could find. He then applied, before last November’s deadline, for official recognition as a Mi’kmaq Indian under an agreement between the federal government and the Federation of Newfoundland Indians.

Pearce was one of many. And that’s where the trouble begins.

About 100,000 people have applied for Mi’kmaq Indian status — a number so high it has sent the federal government scrambling to renegotiate a deal it signed less than five years ago. (The number of federally registered Indians in Canada, according to the 2006 census, is 698,000.)

Conservative MP Greg Rickford, parliamentary secretary to the minister of aboriginal affairs, made clear during a March 28 debate that the government smells something fishy.

“It is simply not reasonable to expect that there would be more than 100,000 credible applications to be members of the Qalipu (Mi’kmaq) band,” Rickford told the House of Commons. “That would be over four times the original estimated number.

“These figures are all the more questionable since it has become clear that many of the late stage of applications appear to no longer reside in that province.”

Rickford made much of the need to ensure “the integrity of the enrolment process.” He also noted that taxpayers’ dollars are at stake. Under the 2008 agreement, those who receive Indian status — and their descendents — will be eligible for federal payments for post-secondary education and noninsured health benefits, including vision and dental care.

The renegotiation is backed by the chief of the Qalipu Mi’kmaq First Nation Band, established under the same federal agreement in 2011. Chief Brendan Sheppard, in a recent post on the band’s website, echoed Rickford’s concerns, saying it was “neither reasonable nor credible to expect more than 100,000 applications to be members of the Qalipu band.”

That has made thousands of would-be Indians, including Pearce, mighty mad.

“You don’t set up the criteria, have people apply and then say, ‘Oops, too many people applied so we’re going to change the rules.’ That’s simply not fair,” Pearce says. “We didn’t set up the criteria, they did.”

Making matters worse, Pearce says, is that more than 23,000 people have already received Mi’kmaq Indian status under the criteria the government suddenly wants renegotiated. Why should more than 70,000 remaining applicants be treated differently?

“It’s a real mess, to say the least,” says Pearce, who recently helped set up Qalipu Watchdogs, a group representing many of those left in limbo.

The issue dates back to 1949, when Newfoundland and Labrador joined Confederation — a deal with no specific arrangement for the province’s aboriginal people.

“In the case of the Mi’kmaq, (then-premier Joey) Smallwood told the federal government there were no Indians on the island of Newfoundland,” says Adrian Tanner, a Memorial University anthropologist.

“This could have been deliberate, Smallwood might not have wanted to bother with a group who might interfere with his development plans; or it might have been Smallwood’s ignorance, which is hard to believe as he had an encyclopedic mania for Newfoundland facts.

“But on the west coast many of the Mi’kmaq anglicized their names, hid their identity, and tried to avoid being called racist slurs, such as “Jack-a-tar.” However, at the time of Confederation, it would not have taken much effort for Smallwood to have found some Mi’kmaq population,” Tanner says in an email.

Aboriginal people have been lobbying for their rights ever since.

In 2005, the federal and provincial governments signed a land claim agreement with the Labrador Inuit — about 5,300 people — covering 72,500 square kilometres. In 2011, the governments signed a land claim deal with leaders representing 2,400 Innu Indians of Labrador.

There is one Mi’kmaq reserve for a separate band at Conne River.

Accounts of the Mi’kmaq presence in Newfoundland go back to at least the early 1600s. Allied with the French, their fortunes took a turn for the worse when the British gained Newfoundland and much of present-day Nova Scotia under the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. Many were pushed out of Nova Scotia.

In Newfoundland, the Mi’kmaq were concentrated on the western coast — known as the “French Shore” — where the French retained fishing rights. But smaller communities could be found hunting, fishing and gathering all over the island, says Angela Robinson, a Memorial University anthropologist who has extensively researched the Mi’kmaq.

Generations of prejudice, marginalization and intermarriage followed. Hiding Indian ancestry became so common that, at some point, whole family histories were buried and forgotten. Families “would be highly insulted if you said they were aboriginal,” Robinson says.

Then came the 1970s, when demands for native rights across North America — including the deadly showdown at Wounded Knee in South Dakota — triggered what eventually become known in Newfoundland as “the awakening.”

Roots and pride were rediscovered, although it wasn’t always easy.

“If someone taps you on the shoulder and says, ‘Were you aware you have aboriginal ancestry?’ You suddenly have to come to terms with a different aspect of who you are as a person,” Robinson says.

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In 1989, the Federation of Newfoundland Indians launched a Federal Court case seeking recognition under the Indian Act. The federal government then agreed to talks and a deal was ratified in 2008. Prime Minister Stephen Harper flew to Newfoundland to announce and praise the agreement.

It recognizes the Mi’kmaq as a band with no land or reserve. People applying to be registered as Indians under federal law do not have to meet a “blood quantum,” used by governments in the past to determine the degree of ancestry. They have to prove they are of “Canadian Indian ancestry.” They also have to prove they were members of a Mi’kmaq community before 1949 or descendents of someone who was.

“The terms of inclusion in this band were quite broad,” Robinson says, insisting that, given the extent of intermarriage and the large size of Newfoundland families, few should be surprised at the numbers that applied for recognition.

“The majority of people outside of St. John’s do have aboriginal ancestry,” Robinson says.

Rickford, parliamentary secretary to Aboriginal Affairs Minister Bernard Valcourt, has noted that when the deal was signed, the federal government and the Federation of Newfoundland Indians both estimated the Mi’kmaq band would number from 8,700 to 12,000 members.

That made sense, Rickford added, because the 2006 census found there were about 23,450 residents of Newfoundland and Labrador who identified themselves as aboriginals — a term that covers Inuit, North American Indians and Metis. Of those, only 7,765 identified themselves as members of a First Nation.

Rickford complained that two-thirds of the 100,000 who applied don’t even live in Newfoundland. But the agreement the federal government signed does not restrict status to those living in the province.

Last November, the government appointed lawyer Fred Caron to work with band leaders to tighten enrolment guidelines. That turned into full-blown negotiations when the 2008 agreement expired in March.

“We’re still in the process of negotiating a new agreement,” says Janet McAuley, the band’s executive assistant. Sheppard, the band’s chief, did not respond to requests for an interview.

Rickford said the goal of negotiations is “to find a solution that treats all applicants fairly and equally, reflects the original intent of the agreement and, of course, ensures the integrity of the enrolment process.”

Gerry Byrne, Liberal MP for the Newfoundland riding of Humber-St. Barbe-Baie Verte, has introduced a motion in parliament calling on the agreement to be extended and remaining applicants to be assessed under current criteria.

Byrne, who has applied for Indian status under the deal, notes the committee assessing applications has always included two federal government representatives. After four years of enforcing the agreement’s enrolment criteria, the government has suddenly disowned the process and tried to paint applicants as frauds, Byrne charges.

“Instead of saying, ‘We didn’t know what we were doing and we signed something we regret,’ the government is now saying, ‘It’s the applicant’s fault,’” Byrne says in an interview.

Byrne also challenges chief Sheppard, insisting he has no band mandate to renegotiate the agreement. A change in enrolment criteria, Byrne warns, could result in some of the 23,000 already approved as Mi’kmaq getting their Indian status revoked.

Tanner, the anthropologist, argues the agreement’s concept of an Indian band without land paved the way for suspicions of taxpayers being had.

“The landless band concept is flawed because, without land and community, it looks to the public like just another handout, and plays into the anti-aboriginal backlash,” Tanner says.

As a federally recognized band, the Mi’kmaq will receive funding for economic development. But without a land base, its individual members won’t get the tax breaks of Indians who live on reserves.

Pearce, the would-be Mi’kmaq, laments media coverage he claims generally portrays applicants as “a bunch of Newfoundlanders that are just interested in becoming a member of this band so they can derive all these benefits from the federal government.”

“Most people I meet will say, ‘Yes, there may be some benefits there for my kids or my grandkids as far as university education is concerned but, really, I’m interested in my family ancestry and I’d like to establish the fact that it was Mi’kmaq.”

If there are cheats, it’s up to the assessing committee to catch them, says Pearce.

Pearce, who has two sons and six grandchildren, says his lobby group has repeated requested meetings with the federal government and Mi’kmaq band council but received no response. They’ve held two protests in front of the council’s Corner Brook offices and are planning more.

An agreement celebrated as a cure for injustice is now the source of division and anger.