Cabinet minister’s Cree great-grandmother claims untrue, records show

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OTTAWA — For years, Employment Minister Randy Boissonnault spoke in Parliament and at public events of his great-grandmother as “a full-blooded Cree woman,” sometimes called “Lucy Brown Eyes.”

Now, facing scrutiny over shifting statements he made about his connections to Indigenous ancestry and, presented with records suggesting otherwise, Boissonnault’s office acknowledges that this was not true and his adoptive great-grandmother’s family in fact had Metis lineage, and she was not “full-blooded Cree.”

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“He spoke to what he believed to be accurate his whole life,” wrote spokeswoman Alice Hansen.

The 54-year-old minister apologized last week for not having been “clear” about his heritage. Though he says he never presented himself as Indigenous, he was often showcased by the Liberal party as an Indigenous MP. He also often referred to his great-grandmother’s roots as Cree.

Questions surrounding Boissonnault’s heritage emerged following a National Post report revealing that the business he co-owned called itself fully “Indigenous” and “Aboriginal-owned” as it tried to bid on federal contracts reserved for Indigenous businesses.

The minister has said his former business partner made that bid without his knowledge and did consent to it.

When he apologized last week, Boissonnault told reporters he had been learning about his family’s heritage “in real time.”

That followed the National Post asking him about his great-grandmother’s background, presenting Boissonnault’s office with census records appearing to show that her father identified as German, which suggests she was of mixed-ancestry and not, as the minister repeatedly described, “a full-blooded Cree woman.”

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“As recent reporting has come to light,” Hansen wrote, “it appears that the minister’s own understanding of his family’s heritage was inaccurate.”

“This information has come as a surprise to the minister and he has apologized for not being as clear as he could have been.”

From about 2017 to 2019, Boissonnault evoked the image of his great-grandmother Lucy Brenneis in Parliament. He called her a “full-blooded Cree woman” and on at least two occasions recounted words he said she had spoken to him as a child.

The MP recounted how one time while his great-grandmother was peeling apples, she told him, “Randy, these hands used to skin hides, now they skin apples, and some day, the lands will return to us.”

Another time, Boissonnault told a parliamentary committee that as a five-year-old he remembers his great-grandmother saying to him: “We come from the land, Randy, and some day we’ll go back to the land, and the land will be all shared in the future.”

He also often mentioned her while making funding announcements on behalf of the Liberal government.

Boissonnault would start by speaking a few words in Cree when he took the microphone.

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“That is Cree for, ‘guests you’re welcome, there’s room here,’” Boissonnault told an Edmonton crowd gathered at one such funding event back in 2019, according to a video shared on the MP’s Facebook page.

“And if my great-grandmother, full-blooded Cree woman Lucy Brenneis were here, she may well welcome you in exactly that same way.”

Boissonnault would start by speaking a few words in Cree when he took the microphone

Whether Boissonnault’s great-grandmother spoke Cree remains unclear. Cree lawyer Leah Ballantyne said that, generally speaking, romanticizing the lives of real Indigenous people is harmful.

“We’re talking about groups of actual people who are living in modern society,” adding she finds it “distasteful.”

Relying on obituaries and census records, the National Post sought to piece together some of Brenneis’s lineage. Boissonnault’s office did not dispute the findings.

According to an obituary published in the Edmonton Journal, Lucy Brenneis died on Aug. 4, 1987 at 90, placing her birth year around 1897.

She was predeceased by her husband, Roy.

The couple married in their early twenties in St. Albert, Alta., in 1921, according to a registration of their marriage filed in Alberta and released to National Post through its provincial archives. Roy Brenneis was listed as a farmer.

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The document lists Lucy Brenneis’s maiden name as Iseke. Her father was listed as Frank Iseke and her mother as Maggie Bellerose. Boissonnault has referred to his great-grandmother as “Lucy Iseke Brenneis.”

A record of the 1931 census lists her father, Frank Iseke, as “German.” A census record from that same year also shows Roy and Lucy Brenneis listed as “German.”

Boissonnault has described his Indigenous differently over his political career.

Shortly after being elected, when the Liberals first swept to power in 2015, the Edmonton MP identified himself as “non-status adopted Cree.”

Elsewhere, he said he was “white.” Most recently, he issued a statement saying his adoptive mother and brother were citizens of the Metis Nation of Alberta, which his office says happened within the past year.

Boissonnault has defended himself by saying he has never tried to claim Indigenous identity.

But for Ballantyne, who was among the thousands of children adopted into non-Indigenous homes during a period known as the Sixties Scoop, she believes he did just that.

“Identity fraud is fraud,” she said in an interview. “I think that somebody who has taken an oath of office to represent people in a level of government has an ethical duty to be honest to all constituents and all people in Canada, which in this case, Mr. Boissonnault has not done so.”

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She believes actions such as his harm people like herself and says Boissonnault should no longer serve in Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s cabinet. Opposition Conservatives have also demanded he resign.

Hansen, the minister’s spokeswoman, said Boissonnault’s adoptive family’s Indigenous heritage comes from his great-grandmother’s lineage, something his mother and brother relied upon to gain their citizenship with the Metis Nation of Alberta, which requires people submit documents to prove a biological connection, among other records.

“They both provided Department of the Interior Documentation from 1885, to show that Lucy’s mother’s family was Métis.”

“It is quite possible that as Lucy’s father was German, the children identified on the census by the father’s ethnicity. I would also note that there were cases where Indigenous peoples did not formally identify, due to fear of discrimination,” Hansen wrote.

“The documentation that Minister Boissonnault’s family provided (the Metis Nation of Alberta) was satisfactory to show the Indigenous lineage of the family. Once again, Minister Boissonnault does not claim Indigenous status personally.”

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First Nations University of Canada professor Merelda Fiddler-Potter, who is herself a citizen of the Métis Nation of Saskatchewan, said she does not doubt the minister’s sincerity, but believes those who may be hurt are those who have lost their connections to community and may see others “claiming identities so easily.”

She said reclaiming connections can be difficult and complicated by factors such as distance from a community.

“It’s not so much how you talk about it,” she added. “But whether or not you claim it before you actually know what it is.”

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