Liberals repeatedly touted MP as ‘Indigenous,’ but he says he isn’t

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OTTAWA – For years, the Liberal Party of Canada touted Employment Minister Randy Boissonnault as an Indigenous MP and part of the “largest number of Indigenous MPs” ever elected in a Canadian government, despite the fact Boissonnault now says he has never claimed Indigenous status.

Between 2016 and 2019, the Liberal Party of Canada and its Indigenous Peoples’ Commission (IPC), a group that advocates for Indigenous issues within the party, repeatedly identified Boissonnault as part of a group of nine “Indigenous MPs” who formed the Indigenous Liberal caucus.

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He joined that caucus in 2016 and was a member until the 2019 federal election, in which he temporarily lost his Edmonton seat before winning it back in 2021. In a statement this week, Boissonnault’s spokesperson Alice Hansen said he joined the caucus as an “ally” because he is not a member of an Indigenous community. However, the Liberal party’s website described the Indigenous caucus as consisting “of MPs who are First Nation, Métis and Inuit nations” and who “represent a broad cross section of who Indigenous people are.”

Hansen told National Post Tuesday that the minister has “never” claimed Indigenous status. The minister has previously described himself as “non-status adopted Cree” but recently changed his description, stating that his adoptive mother and brother are Métis, and recently joined the Métis Nation of Alberta in the past year.

The assertion is raising questions as to why the Liberals advertised Boissonnault as part of a group of Indigenous MPs for years when he now says he never identified as such.

Robert Henry, an Indigenous research chair at the University of Saskatchewan, said that Boissonnault should not have been included among Indigenous colleagues on the Liberal caucus’s website.

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“You have to be clear he’s actually non-Indigenous,” Henry said.

“When you’re a minister or you’re (in) academic spaces and you’re seen to speak on behalf of issues … positioning yourself as Indigenous gives you a different authority to speak on behalf of these issues,” he added.

For instance, Boissonnault pointed to his role on the Indigenous caucus back during a Facebook Live town hall in 2018, when asked a question about the Trans Mountain pipeline.

“I am a proud member of the Liberal Indigenous caucus, so there are nine of us who sit on the Indigenous caucus and I represent Alberta at that caucus and I’m a non-status adopted Cree,” he said at the time.

I think the public needs to understand that there’s a lot of complexities around Indigenous identity

Henry said that Boissonnault identifying himself that way “100-per-cent” changes how his answer on the pipeline would be received. The minister’s office defended the statement, however, saying Boissonnault stating his adoptive family’s history “is not in conflict” with the fact he hasn’t lived an Indigenous experience, which makes him an “ally.”

Meanwhile, the IPC, a Liberal party subgroup promoting Indigenous members’ interests, also repeatedly included Boissonneault as part of a grouping of nine Indigenous MPs in both newsletters to party members and on social media.

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In July 2016, the IPC posted a picture on Instagram of the Indigenous Liberal caucus’s nine members — including Boissonnault — with the caption “proud to have elected the largest number of Indigenous MPs ever during the 2015 Federal Election.”

Two weeks later, it sent out a newsletter that once again featured Boissonnault’s picture along with the eight other members of the party’s Indigenous caucus. The description above the photo extolled the fact that “a total of 9 Liberal Indigenous MPs have formed the largest Indigenous Caucus in the Canadian government’s history.”

“The goal of this group of First Nations, Métis and Inuit Members is to educate and to initiate dialogue with all Members of Parliament regarding Indigenous issues, advocate for an Indigenous perspective on every subject of importance to Canadians, and encourage legislators to approach topics through an Indigenous lens.”

Between 2016 and 2018, Boissonnault also stated multiples times in and out of the House of Commons he was “adopted Cree” or “non-status adopted Cree.”

The MP mentioned his adoptive “full-blooded” Cree great-grandmother five times in Parliament from 2016 to 2019.

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Henry said he has never heard of the term “non-status adopted Cree.”

“I know there are people who are non-First Nations who were adopted into First Nations families but they don’t identify as being an adopted individual. They are members of the community,” the researcher said.

Boissonnault also frequently referenced his membership in the Indigenous caucus during and after his first tenure as an MP, including during a virtual town hall just before the 2021 federal election.

Asked at a government announcement in Vaughan, Ont. on Wednesday about the Liberal party’s history of misleading communications about his identity, Boissonnault offered no comment.

In fact, Boissonnault’s own description of himself has shifted over the years. After referring to his Cree heritage as far back as 2016, he told an LGBT publication in 2021 that he was “white.” Then, on Nov. 8, Boissonnault posted a statement on social media that raised eyebrows because it no longer made mention of the Cree heritage he had previously publicized, but instead noted members of his adopted family were “status Métis.”

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The statement came after National Post revealed last week that a company co-owned by Boissonnault had unsuccessfully bid on federal contracts while claiming to be “Indigenous” and “Aboriginal owned.” A federal program prioritizes suppliers that properly qualify as Indigenous-owned on some contracts.

National Post reported Wednesday that the minister now says his shifting claims were a “reflection of his family exploring their own history.”

“It is not the Minister claiming Indigenous status or that he has lived the experiences of Indigenous people, which he has never done,” Hansen, the MP’s spokesperson, explained in an email.

Liberal party spokesperson Parker Lund did not respond to multiple questions about why the Liberal party and its Indigenous People’s Commission’s website frequently included Boissonnault as an “Indigenous MP” when the minister says he never identified as such.

He also did not clarify why it never identified Boissonnault as an “ally” as opposed to a member of a First Nation, Métis or Inuit nation.

“The Liberal Party does not decide who sits in each caucus, and having allies in caucus is not uncommon (there are some men who often attend the Liberal women’s caucus, for example),” Lund wrote in an email.

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He referred further inquiries to Boissonnault’s office and the minister’s Nov. 8 statement on social media.

Current Indigenous Liberal caucus chair Sydney—Victoria MP Jaime Battiste, who is Mi’kmaw, said in the years he has known him, Boissonnault has never claimed to be Indigenous.

“He’s always stated he was an Indigenous ally. He generally has said he had family members who were Indigenous, but at no point did he ever tell me that he was Indigenous, and at no point did he ever attend Indigenous caucus as an Indigenous member of our caucus,” Battiste said.

“I think the public needs to understand that there’s a lot of complexities around Indigenous identity.”

A 2022 letter from the Indigenous caucus criticized Freedom Convoy protesters for using messages meant to honour residential school survivors like “Every Child Matters,” which included Boissonnault’s signature. Battiste said asking individuals to sign it was done in “human error” and is not his usual practice.

In an interview, former Indigenous Liberal caucus chair Don Rusnak said it was always his understanding that Boissonnault had joined the group as an “ally” and that he wasn’t Indigenous.

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He said Boissonnault joined after Rusnak extended an invitation to all MPs to join as non-Indigenous allies during a Liberal caucus meeting in early 2016.

“He said he represented a wide swath of both Metis and Indigenous people in Alberta in his riding. So, he wanted to make sure he had a voice at the Indigenous caucus,” Rusnak said.

Asked if the party’s description of its Indigenous caucus’s membership was misleading because it lumped Boissonnault in with other Indigenous MPs, Rusnak demurred.

“I don’t want to say that, but I mean, the party would do what the party would do often with its communications. It’s not like they sat there at our caucus meetings,” he said.

National Post

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