Vianne Timmons signed Indspire award nomination requiring recognition with Indigenous community

A copy of Vianne Timmons's nomination form for the Indspire awards shows the university president signed a declaration attesting to recognition with an Indigenous community, two years before accepting an award designed for Indigenous people, by Indigenous people.

The nomination form obtained by CBC News, dated August 2017, contains three sections that nominees were required to fill out, including contact information, "Canadian Indigenous Ancestry" information, and a signed declaration. 

Under Section 2 of the application, Timmons selected "First Nation (including status and non-status on or off reserve)" and specified being of "Mi'kmaw heritage."

She then signed the declaration. The concluding line read, "I am of First Nations, Inuit or Métis heritage and further that I am recognized with the community(ies) as stated in section two above."

It is not clear what community Timmons is referring to or how "Mi'kmaw heritage" may qualify as a community. She did not respond to CBC News's request for an interview, which included a request to discuss how Timmons reconciles saying she has never claimed identity with attesting to being recognized with a First Nation community.

In the wake of a CBC News investigation that looked into her previous statements on her Mi'kmaw ancestry and her past membership in an unrecognized band, Timmons has reiterated that she feels she has always been clear in making the distinction that she has Mi'kmaw ancestry but does not claim to be Mi'kmaw.

Being claimed or recognized by a community is often considered a crucial element to a claim to Indigenous identity. According to Tyler Sack, whose graduate studies focused on Indigenous identity, it is not the only factor — sometimes Indigenous individuals have been forcibly removed from their community, for example — but in his opinion, community recognition supersedes blood relation. 

"It's about relationality. It's about placing people in their community and in their family. So there's often subtle language around it … questions that are indirect," said Sack, a Mi'kmaw man who considers both Membertou and Sipekne'katik First Nations home, in an interview in February. 

"I would ask someone, if I don't know them, 'Where are you from?' And they would tell me.… They can place themselves in community, not just about location but who they're related to or who I might know, and we might be related somehow and we can chart that out orally."

The Indspire Awards — formerly the Aboriginal Achievement Awards — are considered the highest honour the Indigenous community bestows upon its own people, according to the organization's website. 

In an interview with CBC News on Feb. 28, Timmons said she was honoured with the award for education in 2019 because of her work helping to keep First Nations University open amid funding cuts. 

She said she initially turned it down in 2019, despite having signed the application form two years earlier.

"I went back to them and said, 'I do not identify as Mi'kmaw, so I'm not comfortable accepting this.' They came back and said, 'We know you don't identify as Mi'kmaw. It's very clear in the nomination we received. The reason we're providing the award was your work you did, particularly around First Nations [University],'" Timmons said. 

She said she accepted the award only after speaking with an elder in Regina who advised that in accepting the award, she would acknowledge her ancestors.