After a scandal surfaced in 2023 allegedly revealing that Buffy Sainte-Marie fabricated her Indigenous id, the musician and activist has been stripped of her Order of Canada appointment.
Information of the termination was reported on Friday, with Canadian authorities officers confirming that she was stripped of the award on January third. No official motive for the transfer has been given, nonetheless, with officers telling The Toronto Star that they do “not touch upon the specifics of termination circumstances.”
Sainte-Marie has been an icon around the globe because the Nineteen Sixties for her music, Indigenous style, and outspoken assist for indigenous lives and affairs. However a bombshell report by the Canadian Broadcasting Company in 2023 seemingly revealed that, opposite to official biographical data — which claimed she was born on the Piapot Cree First Nations Reserve in Saskatchewan — she was truly born to white mother and father in Massachusetts, and will have falsely invented her indigenous heritage.
This revelation was seemingly corroborated by marriage licenses, census data, a life insurance coverage coverage, and interviews, however Sainte-Marie pushed again towards the allegations. In a press release launched forward of CBC’s report in 2023, she mentioned “I don’t know the place I’m from or who my beginning mother and father had been, and I’ll by no means know,” and that she stays “happy with my Indigenous-American id.”
Contemplating her stature — and her authentic advocacy for Indigenous rights at numerous factors — the controversy has been contentious. Some indigenous artists and activists have expressed disappointment in her, with some even calling for her awards to be stripped. Others, like her adoptive Piapot household, have stood by her, whereas main music establishments such because the Juno Awards and the Canadian Songwriters Corridor of Fame have thus far kept away from revoking her main honors.
Nonetheless, the lack of her Order of Canada appointment comes as an exceptionally uncommon motion. Because the award was created in 1967, greater than 7,600 people have acquired it; solely eight have had it revoked.
Following the discharge of CBC’s report, Sainte-Marie eliminated express claims of being Cree from her web site. Shortly earlier than the report was made public, she introduced her retirement from dwell performances.