Buffy Sainte-Marie appointment to the Order of Canada — the second-highest honour for merit in the systems of orders, decorations and medals of Canada — has been terminated.
As David Friend reports for the Canadian Press, Sainte-Marie has reasserted that she “never lied about her identity” and returned her Order of Canada “with a good heart.”
In her first statement since being stripped of the honour, she said that she had “made it completely clear” to Rideau Hall — and to former prime minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau upon his invitation for her to perform for Queen Elizabeth in 1977 — that she was not Canadian. As her birth certificate reflects, Sainte-Marie is an American citizen and holds a US passport; however, she was adopted by a Cree family in Saskatchewan as a young adult.
The singer-songwriter expressed her “love and gratitude to Canada,” and said that she’s “overwhelmingly grateful that I’ve been able to make my contribution.”
“It was very lovely to host the medals for awhile, but I return them with a good heart,” Sainte-Marie added, having also recently been scrubbed from a “human rights defenders” exhibit at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg.
As first reported by the National Post, it was posted on the government’s official publication February 7 that Governor General Mary Simon had stripped the singer-songwriter of the title via an order signed in early January.
No reason was given for the termination of Sainte-Marie’s Order of Canada, with the Office of the Secretary to the Governor General explaining in a statement that it doesn’t comment on the specifics of cancellation cases, but an advisory council makes recommendations for both appointments and terminations.
In 2023, CBC published an inquest into the integrity of the musician and activist’s claims to Indigenous ancestry, reporting that the artist’s birth certificate lists both parents and the baby as being white — which the investigation noted is corroborated by Sainte-Marie’s marriage certificate, a life insurance policy and the United States Census. She hails from Stoneham, MA.
Buffy Sainte Marie has removed the Cree Ancestry claims from the biography on her website.