Buffy Sainte-Marie celebrates her Juno for Indigenous Music Album of the Year at the Juno Awards in Vancouver, Sunday, March, 25, 2018.JONATHAN HAYWARD/The Canadian Press
The Indigenous Women’s Collective is calling for Buffy Sainte-Marie to lose her 2018 Juno Award for Indigenous album of the year, after a CBC story raised doubts about the singer’s ancestry.
The collective says in a statement that it has reviewed the story and believes Sainte-Marie deceived the public about her origin.
It says the deception allowed her to benefit from a false narrative that misled thousands of Indigenous people.
CBC obtained Sainte-Marie’s birth certificate, which says she was born in 1941 in Stoneham, Mass., to Albert and Winifred Sainte-Marie.
Family members in the U.S., including Sainte-Marie’s younger sister, told CBC that the musician was not adopted and does not have Indigenous ancestry.
Sainte-Marie, 82, has said she doesn’t know who her birth parents are or where she’s from but calls herself “a proud member of the Native community with deep roots in Canada.’”
