Buffy Sainte-Marie Has Her Order of Canada Terminated Following Investigation Into Indigenous Ancestry

Singer-songwriter Buffy Sainte-Marie is no longer appointed to the Order of Canada.

Her appointment to one of the country's highest honours has been terminated by the Governor General, as announced in the Canada Gazette on February 8. The termination Ordinance was signed on January 3.

Sainte-Marie is one of the country's most-celebrated musicians and has been a leader on Indigenous issues for decades, but her reputation has shifted over the last year. In the fall of 2023, a CBC Fifth Estate investigation cast doubt on her claims of Indigenous ancestry.

Sainte-Marie had previously claimed she believed she was born on the Piapot First Nation reserve in Saskatchewan. She believed she had been adopted by the Santamaria family that raised her in Wakefield, Massachusetts, attributing her adoption to the Sixties Scoop, a period in the 1960s when many Indigenous babies were taken from their parents and adopted by white families.

CBC's investigation produced a birth certificate for Sainte-Marie which lists her presumed adoptive parents as her birth parents. It also features interviews with Sainte-Marie's family members calling her claim to Indigenous identity "an elaborate fabrication," and contextualizes Sainte-Marie's career within a phenomenon of high-profile public figures who have fabricated Indigenous identity.

As a young adult, Sainte-Marie was adopted by Emile Piapot and Clara Starblanket Piapot of the Piapot First Nation in Saskatchewan in accordance with Cree law and customs.

Sainte-Marie issued a statement around the investigation. "For a long time, I tried to discover information about my background,” she wrote. “Through that research what became clear, and what I’ve always been honest about, is that I don’t know where I’m from or who my birth parents were, and I will never know.”

In a follow-up statement, she affirmed her truth. "I have never lied about my identity," Sainte-Marie said, adding that the investigation included "mistakes and omissions."

The investigation prompted calls from some Indigenous groups and artists for major organizations to rethink their celebration of Sainte-Marie.

In a career spanning six decades, Sainte-Marie has won an Oscar, the Polaris Music Prize, multiple Juno Awards, and the Governor General's Performing Arts Award, in addition to her appointment to the Order of Canada. She was first appointed to the Order in 1997, and in 2019 was made a Companion of the Order, the highest level within the Order.

A group called the Indigenous Women's Collective called on the Junos to rescind Sainte-Marie's 2018 award for Indigenous Album of the Year, with Cree opera singer Rhonda Head supporting the call.

The Canada Gazette provides no detail on the termination of Sainte-Marie's Order of Canada. The Order of Canada Termination Policy states that an Advisory Council can recommend termination to the Governor General if an appointee's conduct departs significantly from their standard of public behaviour and may undermine the credibility of the Order.

CBC reports that in its 50-year history, Sainte-Marie is the 9th person to have their appointment to the Order terminated.