A Cree, Ovide Mercredi lived outside the reservation because his mother was stripped of her Indian status when she married a Métis (a person of mixed indigenous and European descent). After receiving a law degree in 1977 from the University of Manitoba, Mercredi practiced criminal law. He was appointed a member of the Manitoba Human Rights Commission, and in 1989 he became the Assembly of First Nations’ vice-chief for Manitoba.
Mercredi became a leading advocate for native peoples’ rights. He was involved with the Cree of Northern Quebec in their efforts to stop the Great Whale hydroelectric project, which would have dammed the Great Whale River, in northwestern Quebec, and diverted two smaller rivers into it. In June 1990 he was one of the tacticians who helped Manitoba legislator Elijah Harper defeat the Meech Lake Accord because it did not address the rights of native people.
On June 12, 1991, Mercredi was elected national chief of the Assembly of First Nations. Influenced by the teachings of Mohandas K. Gandhi, Mercredi took a path of civil disobedience, passive resistance, and nonviolence. While acting as a mediator in confrontations between the government and Indians at Oka in Quebec (1990) and at Gustafsen Lake in British Columbia (1995), he argued against the use of violence.
In 1995 Mercredi—representing some 1.5 million aboriginal people from more than 600 bands across Canada—repeatedly espoused his belief that “aboriginal people, as the land’s original inhabitants, have inherent rights to self-government.” He warned that First Nations people would not allow their concerns to be ignored in discussions taking place in the wake of the October defeat of the Quebec referendum on sovereignty. Mercredi had participated in talks formulating the 1992 Charlottetown Accord, which, had it been adopted, would have supported self-government and treaty review for Canada’s aboriginal population.
Mercredi and the assembly favoured distinct status for Indians, with the right of self-government, mainly so that aboriginal people could deal with their problems according to traditional laws and values. The assembly also opposed the federal Indian Act, which allowed the government to dictate who had status as an Indian. Mercredi himself did not have status as an Indian until 1985 because his father was not one.
As national chief, Mercredi spoke for a diverse group of status Indians who embraced differing traditions and at times represented conflicting interests. In his efforts to find consensus for policies and to foster unity, he spent much of his time traveling across Canada to meet people and to learn firsthand of their problems. Mercredi served two terms (1991–97) as leader of the assembly. He continued his activism on behalf of Canadian First Nations people and in 2006 was awarded the Order of Manitoba, the province’s highest honour. He became the first chancellor of Manitoba’s University College of the North in 2007. Mercredi cowrote the book In the Rapids: Navigating the Future of First Nations (1993).