Folk singer Buffy Sainte-Marie has suffered more fallout after returning her Order of Canada following allegations that she fabricated claims of her Indigenous ancestry, which she has denied.
The musician and social justice advocate, 84, said she returned the award “with a good heart” after being stripped of the title in February – and has now had two more honours revoked as a result.
CBC, who led the original investigation into Sainte-Marie’s heritage, reports that she has had her seven Juno Awards and two Polaris awards taken away from her as she is not Canadian. The Juno Awards are Canada’s equivalent to the Grammys.
She will also have her induction into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame, which occurred in 1994, rescinded.
In a press release, the Polaris Music organisation said: “Our eligibility criteria requires all nominees to be Canadian citizens or permanent residents, with proof of status provided through government-issued documentation, including passports, birth certificates, permanent resident cards, and/or secure certificates of Indian Status.”
The singer-songwriter is an American citizen and holds a US passport, but was adopted as a young adult by a Cree family in Saskatchewan. She previously said she had lived with “uncertainty” about her parentage and unsuccessfully explored the possibility that she was born in Canada.
“I’ve never treated my citizenship as a secret and most of my friends and relatives in Canada have known I’m American, and it’s never been an issue,” she said.
Sainte-Marie told the Canadian Press that she made it “completely clear” to government representatives and to former prime minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau that she was not Canadian when she was asked to perform for Queen Elizabeth II in 1977.
Last year, a CBC news report for the show Fifth Estate called into question her Indigenous heritage, discovering a birth certificate that indicated she was born Beverly Jean Santamaria in 1941 in Massachusetts, with herself and her parents listed as white.
Enjoy unlimited access to 100 million ad-free songs and podcasts with Amazon Music
Sign up now for a 30-day free trial
Variety reports that biographical information supplied by Sainte-Marie’s team over the years stated that she was born on the Piapot Cree First Nations Reserve in Qu’Appelle Valley, Saskatchewan, while her 2018 authorised biography also states that she was likely born Cree.
The publication reports that her website also once stated that she was “believed to have been born in 1941 on the Piapot First Nation reserve in Saskatchewan and taken from her biological parents when she was an infant”.
In a statement issued on Tuesday (4 March), the singer expressed her “love and gratitude” to Canada and said she felt “overwhelmingly grateful that I’ve been able to make my contribution”.
She added: “It was very lovely to host the medals for a while, but I return them with a good heart.”
The official residence of the governor general of Canada said it had also terminated two jubilee medals given to Sainte-Marie in 2002 and 2012, both associated with her membership to the Order of Canada, which she received in 1997.
In an email sent in September to CBC, Sainte-Marie’s Ontario-based lawyer said: “At no point has Buffy Sainte-Marie personally misrepresented her ancestry or any details about her personal history to the public.”
She said that any perceived consistencies CBC had found in Sainte-Marie’s story can be explained by the truth.
In October 2023, Sainte-Marie issued a statement online with the headline “My Truth as I Know It”, calling the questions surrounding her heritage “deeply hurtful allegations”.
“I have always struggled to answer questions [about] who I am,” she said, maintaining that she was “proud of my Indigenous-American identity, and the deep ties I have to Canada and my Piapot family”.
“What I know about my Indigenous ancestry I learnt from my mother,” she said. “I may not know where I was born, but I know who I am.”
Sainte-Marie won an Oscar for Best Original Song in 1983 for co-writing “Up Where We Belong” for the film An Officer and a Gentleman.