Universities across Canada addressing Indigenous identity fraud in wake of Carrie Bourassa investigation

The University of Saskatchewan has agreed that in the future it will rely on the Métis Nation-Saskatchewan (MN-S) and its citizenship registry to assess who qualifies for opportunities at the university intended for Métis people. 

"We believe that a key part of reconciliation is recognizing that Indigenous communities define and verify their own memberships," U of S president Peter Stoicheff was quoted as saying in a Nov. 27 MN-S news release announcing the agreement. 

The MN-S said that since June 2020, it has been calling on Saskatchewan post-secondary institutions to rely on its citizenship registry when awarding jobs or scholarships targeted at Métis people.

"This is a precedent-setting partnership between a Canadian University and a Métis Government," Glen McCallum, president of the MN-S, said.

The announcement comes one month after a CBC investigation revealed that U of S professor Carrie Bourassa, who for years has claimed to have Métis, Anishnaabe and Tlingit ancestry, had no proof of those claims. 

Since that time, she has been dismissed from her role as the scientific director of the Indigenous health arm of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.  She has also been placed on leave from the U of S pending the outcome of an investigation into whether Bourassa misrepresented her ancestry in its dealings with the university. 

The day after the CBC story was published, MN-S released a statement condemning identity fraud, which it said is "a serious concern in the arts, academics and public services where funding, employment, advisory positions and other opportunities are targeted for Indigenous peoples." The statement added that the MN-S has established an "objectively verifiable registry of Métis citizens… based on an accepted common definition of Métis across Métis governments."

For years, many universities in Canada have relied on self-identification, essentially an honour system, when offering jobs or other opportunities to Indigenous people. However, a series of scandals across the country involving high-profile people in the arts or academia falsely claiming Indigenous ancestry has increasingly caused Indigenous leaders and university administrators to conclude that self identification is no longer sufficient. 

Jacqueline Ottmann, an Indigenous woman from Fishing Lake First Nation and president of First Nations University of Canada (FNUniv) in Regina, said Indigenous peoples have traditionally had a fairly simple way of determining identity. 

"When we meet each other we ask where do you come from, who are your parents, what community and territory does your family come from?" said Ottman. 

She said it's time for a national conversation about how to introduce these sorts of traditional concepts into the university system and that FNUniv is willing to help by hosting an event featuring a national dialogue on the topic. 

While it's still in the planning stages, it "would be an exploration of what universities across the country are doing… because everybody's at a different phase in this development," Ottman said. 

"Some [universities] feel they're completed. Some are just beginning. And so bringing people together to talk about the challenges related to perhaps developing a policy and addressing some of those issues together I think is very important."

She hopes to host the event sometime early next year.