Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs


The Grand Chief is Arlen Dumas. He is from Mathias Colomb Cree Nation in Pukatawagan. Grand Chief Arlen Dumas was elected on July 19, 2017. He won on an unprecedented first ballot with 33 of 54 possible votes. The AMC represents 62 of 63 First Nations in Manitoba.

History

The Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs was previously known as the Manitoba Indian Brotherhood. The Manitoba Indian Brotherhood presented their landmark position paper entitled, "Wahbung: Our Tomorrows"—in opposition to then-Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau's 1969 White Paper which proposed the abolition of the Indian Act. The federal government at the time argued that the Indian Act was discriminatory and that the special legal relationship between Aboriginal peoples and the Canadian state should be dismantled in favour of equality, in accordance with Trudeau's vision of a "just society." The federal government proposed that by eliminating "Indian" as a distinct legal status, the resulting equality among all Canadians would help resolve the problems faced by Indigenous peoples. After opposition from many Indigenous leaders—including the MIB—the white paper was abandoned in 1970.