https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/02/buffy-sainte-marie-documentary-controversy-indigenous-canada
The CBC, which previously outlined its criteria for reporting “pretendian” stories, said it reached out to members of the Piapot family, but received no response. The CBC also says it reached out to the acting chief of Piapot First Nation to arrange a visit to the community, but the chief declined. The broadcaster added it “does not dispute the Piapot family adopted Buffy Sainte-Marie as an adult, nor does it dispute the validity of that traditional adoption”.
Over the weekend, the Indigenous Women’s Collective said in a statement that after weighing the claims against Sainte-Marie, it concluded the singer had engaged in a “great deception” that allowed her to benefit from a “very deliberate and false narrative that misled thousands of Indigenous youth, adults, and most tragically, Indigenous survivors of colonial harm”.
The group singled out Sainte-Marie’s previous statements that she was a survivor of the Sixties Scoop – a notorious period in Canadian history in which Indigenous children were forcibly taken from their homes and sent to live with white families. While the CBC documentary notes the Scoop began a decade after Sainte-Marie was born, adoptions into white families still took place.
The Indigenous Women’s Collective also called for Sainte-Marie to be stripped of her 2018 Indigenous Album of the Year award at the Junos, a prestigious Canadian music award show.
Of course nothing new here: