About the MISA Framework
Understanding the origins, purpose, and vision behind the Métis Identity, Safety, and Accountability Framework.
Territorial and Community Acknowledgement
We acknowledge that Métis people live, work, and thrive across many traditional territories and homelands. The Métis Nation has a unique history, culture, and identity that spans generations and geographies. We recognize the strength, resilience, and contributions of Métis people, past, present, and future, and commit to honouring Métis voices, rights, and self-determination in all our work.
We also acknowledge the diversity within Métis communities: urban and rural, East and West, those connected to historical Métis communities and those reconnecting, those with different life experiences and pathways. All Métis people deserve dignity, safety, and belonging.
About This Framework
This framework is here to help organizations treat Métis people with safety, respect, and care.1
We created it because Métis people face harm from more than one direction.2 Some spaces tell us we're not Indigenous "enough." Others say we're "too white." Our identity gets questioned, sometimes anonymously. We get left out of programs and policies altogether. These aren't just hurt feelings. They're real harm.3
The MISA Framework helps your organization:
- Stop harmful practices like gossip, identity policing, and lateral violence
- Build safe spaces where Métis people can name and live their identity without fear
- Create real partnerships with Métis governments and communities
- Build accountability that has teeth, not just words
What MISA is NOT:
- It's not here to replace your existing cultural safety work. It adds to it.
- It's not a rigid rulebook. Adapt it to fit your context.
- It's not owned or gatekept. We share it freely so Métis communities can strengthen it.
- It's not about blaming individuals. It's about changing systems.
Think of this framework as guardrails. It helps you do less harm and more good.
The Challenge & The Framework
The Challenge
Métis people face discrimination and marginalization from multiple directions:
From non-Indigenous systems:
- Erasure, invisibility, exclusion from Indigenous-specific programs and services
From within Indigenous communities:
- Lateral violence, identity policing, "white passing" accusations, questioning of authenticity
From both:
- Being told they are "not Indigenous enough" or "too white," navigating impossible standards of proof and belonging
These experiences are compounded by:
- Historical trauma from the Métis-specific scrip system, suppression of Métis rights, and forced assimilation
- Ongoing denial of Métis rights, land, and self-governance
- Lack of understanding about Métis-specific history, culture, and nationhood
- Policies and practices that ignore or actively harm Métis people
The Framework
The MISA Framework provides a systems-based approach to creating Métis safety, dignity, and accountability across organizations. It includes:
- Four Core Principles guiding all work
- The Ten Threads of the Métis Sash where Métis identity safety and accountability are embedded
- Strategic Goals and Objectives for meaningful, measurable change
- Implementation Guidance including action planning and accountability mechanisms
"MISA is intended as a starting point for dialogue and co-development with Métis governments and communities, not a final or fixed answer."
— Matthew J. Dyck
Who This Is For
Primary Audience:
- Métis governments, communities, and organizations
- Organizational leaders, managers, staff, and contractors in:
- Health and social services
- Education and training institutions
- Government agencies and programs
- Indigenous-serving organizations
- Any organization serving or employing Métis people
Three Key Beneficiary Groups:
- 1Métis staff, contractors, and volunteers
- 2Métis communities and families
- 3Métis individuals accessing services and programs
Why This Framework Exists
I created MISA because of what I went through.5
I saw, up close, how Métis identity scrutiny, lateral violence, and institutional failure can strip a person of safety, belonging, and voice. I know what it feels like to have my identity called into question, to be talked about instead of spoken with, and to watch policies that were supposed to protect me quietly look the other way. That experience could have stayed as private harm or a closed file. Instead, I chose to turn it into public work.
MISA is my way of refusing to let that be the end of the story. I never want another Métis person to feel as helpless, isolated, or expendable as I was made to feel inside systems that claimed to care. If organizations don't know how to protect Métis people from identity policing and lateral violence, I want to put practical tools in their hands so they can learn and be accountable.
I created this framework to turn something bad into something good: to take one painful, personal experience and translate it into concrete guidance, checklists, and policies that can prevent the same harm from repeating in other workplaces. I'm not looking for sympathy, I'm looking for change. MISA is how I turn my own story into something other Métis people can lean on, and something organizations can no longer pretend they don't have.
— Matthew J. Dyck
Creator, MISA Framework
Acknowledgements
This framework is dedicated to all Métis people who have shared their painful experiences of discrimination, lateral violence, and exclusion, and who continue to work for change with courage and resilience.
Special gratitude to the Métis Elders, Knowledge Keepers, and community members who have guided and informed this work through their wisdom, stories, and lived experience.
This framework builds on the work of countless Métis leaders, advocates, educators, and community organizers who have fought for Métis recognition, rights, and dignity across generations.
What Guides Us
The MISA Framework is built on four core values that inform everything from its development to its implementation.
Métis‑Led
This framework was developed by and for Métis people, centering Métis voices, experiences, and governance in every aspect.
Open & Accessible
Shared freely under Creative Commons so that any organization, government, or community can use and adapt it.
Harm‑Informed
Developed in direct response to the real and ongoing harms of identity scrutiny, lateral violence, and cultural erasure.
Community‑Centred
Grounded in the lived experiences of Métis communities and designed to strengthen, not replace, community governance.
Creative Commons License
The MISA Framework is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0) so that Métis communities, governments, and organizations can freely adapt and strengthen it.
You're free to:
- Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format
- Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially
Under the following terms:
- Attribution — You must give appropriate credit to Matthew J. Dyck as the original creator, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made
- No additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits
Formal partnerships, co-branding, and implementation support can be developed by agreement where organizations wish to work together on sector- or region-specific versions.