Boissonnault’s explanation for identifying as Cree then Metis refuted

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OTTAWA — The Indigenous researcher who Employment Minister Randy Boissonnault’s office says explained to him that he was “non-status adopted Cree” says he did not give the Edmonton MP that term.

In addition, the president of the Metis nation that Boissonnault recently said members of his adoptive family has joined said that the MP would appear not to qualify for citizenship under its rules.

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Boissonnault’s office recently referred National Post to Chadwick Cowie after questions emerged about the minister’s shifting claims about his Indigenous identity, initially saying he was “non-status adopted Cree.”

Cowie is an assistant professor of political science at the University of Toronto and a member of the Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg Nation as part of the community of Hiawatha First Nation.

“I would not say that I gave him the term that he was ‘non-status adopted Cree’,” Cowie said an interview.

“I would have worded it differently,” he added. “I would have said that he was adopted to a family that had Cree lineage.”

From 2016 to 2018, Boissonnault repeatedly told Parliament that he was “non-status adopted Cree.” But last week, following a National Post report that the company he co-owned called itself “Indigenous” and “Aboriginal-owned” to bid on federal contracts, the Edmonton MP revised his story and said the family who adopted him as a child has Metis heritage.

Alice Hansen, a spokeswoman for Boissonnault, has said his business partner at the time made claims about the Edmonton MP’s heritage without his consent. His changing descriptions, she said, are a “reflection of his family exploring their own history.”

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Hansen also said that Boissonnault’s mentions of being “adopted Cree” in Parliament in 2016 and 2018 came from an explanation from Cowie, based on the minister’s understanding of his adoptive family’s history “at the time.”

Cowie said his conversations with the MP about his heritage happened almost a decade ago, after having first met him at the 2012 Liberal convention in Ottawa.

Cowie said he was “very politically involved” at the time, and co-chaired the Liberals’ Indigenous People’s Commission, a group within the party that advocates for Indigenous issues. He said he left the party after several years as he grew increasingly disillusioned about the Liberals’ commitment to reconciliation.

Boissonnault’s spokeswoman confirmed it was not until “right before” the 2015 federal election that the MP looked to a researcher for how best to describe himself — meaning the MP would have been in his mid-40s at the time — but says he has been exploring his heritage his whole life.

I would have said that he was adopted to a family that had Cree lineage

Robert Henry, a Metis academic and Indigenous research chair at the University of Saskatchewan, suggests that timing raises questions related to the number of Indigenous constituents in his riding. About eight per cent of the population of Edmonton Centre identified as Indigenous in the 2016 and 2021 censuses.

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Cowie said he never saw Boissonnault use his heritage to try and win his Edmonton seat, which he won in 2015 and again in 2021 (after losing it in 2019). He added there are many people from unclear backgrounds trying to figure out who they are.

Boissonnault’s spokesperson also said he was simply looking for a way to describe his heritage accurately.

“Any insinuation he did so for political reasons, is categorically false,” wrote Hansen in an email.

Cowie recalled that during his conversations with the then-future MP, Boissonnault initially told him he thought he was Metis.

But after Boissonnault explained he had a Cree great-grandmother, Cowie told him he was more likely someone who has non-status Cree lineage.

Kurt Boyer, a member of Métis Nation-Saskatchewan and a chair of Metis governance and policy at the University of Saskatchewan, said there continues to be a “persistent gap” in understanding what it means to be Metis.

“There are people that believe that Metis means a mixed race, racial group, and we are not a race. We are a nation,” Boyer said.

Cowie said that Boissonnault described his great-grandmother as having been “adopted out” of her Cree community and that his family was trying to rebuild those ties. He also admits it is possible that he misunderstood Boissonnault’s explanation because he didn’t realize the MP had been adopted.

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“I thought that was his biological great-grandmother,” he said. “I misunderstood probably… that he was (a) descendant of someone who had been adopted out, not that he was adopted in to a family that had Indigenous lineage.”

Cowie says the term “adopted” generally refers to someone who was adopted by an Indigenous community as a member, regardless of if they have status or membership in the eyes of Ottawa.

Boissonnault has used the term to express how he was an adopted child and not raised by his biological parents.

“The adoptive thing makes it sound like he is, you know, (Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond), or he is Buffy Sainte-Marie,” said Cowie, referring to high-profile figures who have had their Indigenous heritage questioned.

“If I said adopted, that means he’s been adopted into a community,” Cowie says. “That’s what I get when I see the word.”

He says know Boissonnault to be someone who was “exploring” his heritage and “doing a lot of work behind the scenes”.

Over the course of trying to clarify his heritage, Indigenous academics have pointed out that Boissonnault has made some factual errors.

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In his first public statement last week, Boissonnault said both his adopted mother and brother now have their “Metis status.” Academics noted that “status” only applies to First Nations under the Indian Act, whereas Metis nations have citizenship.

In outlining how his mother and brother became citizens of the Métis Nation of Alberta within the past year, his office also stated that, “adopted individuals can be recognized as eligible for Indigenous status or Metis citizenship” but that “the minister has not pursued this process formally for himself.”

But Andrea Sandmaier, president of Otipemisiwak Métis Government, which governs the Alberta Metis Nation, told National Post the opposite is true.

“Currently the Otipemisiwak Métis Government does not have an adoption policy and requires biological connection to historic Métis ancestry to become a citizen,” she wrote in an email.

She defended the nation as requiring a “rigorous” application and registration process and said individuals must submit documents including a family tree and birth certificate to become citizens.

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“False claims of Métis ancestry cause great harm our communities and undermine the trust we have built in our registry process,” she added.

Toronto Metropolitan University professor Damien Lee, who was adopted into Fort William First Nation as a baby, says adoption remains a fraught issue when it comes to Indigenous identity. While there is a long history of people being adopted into communities, adoption has also been “weaponized” against Indigenous people by removing children from their homes through the Sixties Scoop and the residential school system, he said.

Another issue is people using it to fraudulently claim an Indigenous identity. In those cases, Lee said the question becomes, “is there a nation out there that’s claiming this person?”

In the case of someone who is adopted into an Indigenous family, Lee said while no one would question that child being a member of that family, recognizing them as a citizen of a nation is more complex and requires that they “fulfill responsibilities over time.”

On Thursday, National Post detailed how between 2016 and 2018, the Liberal party’s Indigenous People’s Commission (which Cowie co-chaired) frequently identified Boissonnault as one of nine “Indigenous MPs” elected in 2015 in social media messages, newsletters and its website.

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Cowie said he is comfortable with how the group identified Boissonnault because that was how the commission’s executive understood the MP’s identity at the time, though it may have been inaccurate.

But he also noted that Boissonnault never tried to correct the record.

National Post

staylor@postmedia.com

cnardi@postmedia.com

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