The decreases in funding being received by MNS is hurting the organization, [Ralph Kennedy] said, but it's also hurting all the Métis people in the province. At a time when the MNS would like to be working with the provincial government to deal with issues like Métis hunting rights, the province is instead finding ways to block resources coming to the organization.

Kennedy said the executive has heard from a number of Métis people from across Saskatchewan who would like to see the MNS approach to the current impasse kicked up a notch or two. One of the suggestions involves taking over Batoche--once the site of the battle that signaled the beginning of the end of the Métis rebellion led by [Louis Riel] and Gabriel Dumont and now a national historic site--and turning it into a refuge camp for Métis people, "because that's how we're being treated here," Kennedy said.

"There's different people who want us to do different things, more on an aggressive scale, but we're trying to be as reasonable as we can," Kennedy said. "People want us to take over Batoche and call in the different foreign countries and say, 'Look at how Canada treats its people.' As soon as there's any kind of wrong-doing in some country, Canada is right there saying 'You've got to do your human rights part here, you know. You can't treat these people like this.' But yet the provincial government here can say to the Métis people, 'We don't like the way your elections are, we want to put in this person.'"

Government