Buffy Sainte-Marie was a jewel of Canadian heritage, a kind of national symbol not far from the beaver and the maple leaf. He was also an Indigenous icon. Until the earthquake: it was all a big farce. The symbol is white and American. The sensational CBC investigation at the end of October leaves no doubt.
Published at 1:09 am. Updated at 7:00 a.m.
The shock wave is not yet fully felt. It is so big that many Canadians are having difficulty digesting these revelations. Many people came to the singer’s help. Then why, they ask, attack this great 82-year-old artist? After all, she campaigned for indigenous rights her entire life. She didn’t do anything wrong. This is pure pettiness on CBC1’s part…
This is called shooting the messenger. We would like to bury this story, but the truth, even the one that hurts, has its place. And that truth is that Buffy Sainte-Marie knowingly lied about her origins. Contrary to what she has claimed for decades, she was not born on a Cree reserve in Saskatchewan. Her birth certificate indicates she is from Massachusetts. Members of his family confirm this. His story is a joke.
PHOTO CHRIS YOUNG, CANADIAN PRESS ARCHIVE
Buffy Sainte Marie
She didn’t do anything wrong? Tell that to the Indigenous artists she has eclipsed for decades. To the Juno finalists from whom she stole victory – and the opportunities these prestigious awards bring to honor Canadian music. For those who had a story to tell. No lies. The only true.
Among them was Kelly Fraser. In 2018, this young Inuit singer’s second album was selected in the “Best Indigenous Album of the Year” category. She addressed issues that concerned her, such as food insecurity, the high cost of living and the alarming suicide rates in Nunavut. She didn’t pretend. It wasn’t victim marketing.
It was the reality of his people and his own. Hard and raw.
“My music exists to heal people. I need to heal too,” Kelly Fraser told CBC2 in September 2018. “When you grow up in a place where people have experienced a lot of trauma and pain, you are left with scars.” The Canadian government forced my mother to attend residential school. He tore her from her own mother’s arms. They were forbidden to speak their language, Inuktitut. They were prevented from talking about their culture. They were mistreated day and night. »
PHOTO DARRYL DYCK, CANADIAN PRESS ARCHIVE
Kelly Fraser on the red carpet at the 2018 Juno Awards
In that report, Kelly Fraser also confided that her father had ended his life – and that she had spent her youth convincing her friends not to be like him.
A year later, in December 2019, she committed suicide. She was 26 years old.
After the CBC’s shocking revelations, Maxine Anguk couldn’t help but wonder: What if…?
What if her little sister Kelly had won the Juno for Best Indigenous Album of 2018 and not Buffy Sainte-Marie? “Maybe, just maybe, it would have changed Kelly’s life,” she wrote on Facebook.
Maxine Anguk declined my interview request. She mentioned to me that with this post she “just explained how things like this can affect someone.”
It’s not so much about the award itself, but about everything that could have come from it: tours, radio plays, record sales.
“Juno winners tour the country and the world, while finalists perform at neighborhood bars and occasional summer festivals,” Anishinaabe musician Billy Joe Green told The Canadian Press. A Juno was snatched by Buffy Sainte-Marie in 20093. Since then, he has found it difficult to make a living from his music.
A month before her death, Kelly Fraser launched an online campaign to fund her third album. She hoped to raise $60,000 for admission and promotion. The album was supposed to be called Decolonize.
Isn’t it a form of colonialism to invent an indigenous legend to profit from it? Many believe it.
“The false origin story and appropriation of intergenerational trauma are intolerable and constitute an act of colonial violence,” condemned the Indigenous Women’s Collective, calling for the cancellation of the Juno Awards awarded to Buffy Sainte-Marie during his career.
The organizers of the Juno Awards have not yet made a decision on this. At the moment they are consulting. Just like the Office of the Governor General, which named Buffy Sainte-Marie a Companion of the Order of Canada, the highest honor that can be bestowed on a Canadian civilian.
I’m not holding my breath. When it comes to indigenous identity theft, authorities in this country often tend to turn a blind eye.
In the Canadian public service, white employees declare themselves Aboriginal in order to receive positions reserved for them. In prisons, inmates do the same to benefit from certain privileges.
I discovered all of this in an investigation in 20194. Since then the farce has continued.
Just recently, Marvin Ouimet was automatically released after serving two-thirds of his sentence. The Hells Angel, one of the most influential in Quebec, declared himself a mixed race during his imprisonment. No one had questioned this, even though the biker was born in Repentigny and we had to go back in time to New France to find a local ancestor…
Not only does no one question this, but everyone plays the game. In its latest decision, the parole board acknowledges that Marvin Ouimet’s “indigenous social background” may have played a role in the (poor) decisions he made. He did it. This could explain his “need for belonging” and his “attraction to quick and easy success.” Seriously.
Absurd, I think that’s the word you’re looking for.