Canadian academic on leave amid row over Indigenous ancestry claims
A Canadian official and academic specialising in Indigenous health issues has been placed on administrative leave from her university after an investigation challenged her claims of Indigenous ancestry.
Carrie Bourassa, a professor at the University of Saskatchewan, has described herself as having Métis, Anishinaabe and Tlingit heritage. In 2019 she appeared at a TEDx talk wearing a blue embroidered shawl and holding a feather, where she identified herself as “Morning Star Bear”.
However, an investigation by CBC television alleged that Bourassa was entirely of European descent.
She recently stepped down from her role as scientific director for Indigenous peoples health at the Canadian Institute of Health Research (CIHR). Bourassa had been described by the CIHR as “a Métis woman, a highly regarded Indigenous researcher” who “has been a selfless leader and a tireless champion for all Indigenous peoples in this country”.
The CBC investigation has drawn comparisons with the case of Rachel Dolezal, an American academic and activist who was accused of passing herself off as black. A Métis professor who worked with Bourassa told CBC she was “the modern-day Grey Owl” – a reference to Archibald Stansfeld Belaney, the British-born conservationist and writer who passed himself off as a Native American in the early 20th century.
CBC reported that people who worked with Bourassa had expressed disquiet about her account of her ancestry, and some examined her genealogical records, which reportedly showed that her ancestors were of Russian, Polish and Czechoslovakian descent.
In an email to CBC, Bourassa said she had been adopted as Métis by a friend of her grandfather and had subsequently been adopted into other communities. She accused the broadcaster of running a “smear campaign” against her, adding she was “shocked and dismayed at the recent attack on my identity”.
In a statement released by Bourassa after the claims were broadcast she said she identified as Métis and that elders who supported her did not rely on “blood quantums” to assess Indigenous identity.
In comments reported in the Saskatoon StarPhoenix, she added: “Maybe in the fact that I’m trying so hard to pull pieces together, maybe I’ve forgotten certain things. It’s hard sometimes when you’re so anxious to find some of the gaps you know are there.”
The treatment of Indigenous people in Canada has been in the spotlight in recent months after the discovery of unmarked grave sites at residential schools that had attempted to eradicate the culture and languages of Indigenous populations.
Among those quoted by CBC was Janet Smylie, a health academic of Métis heritage at the University of Toronto, who wrote a chapter in a 2017 book on Indigenous parenting edited by Bourassa.
Smylie told the broadcaster she had done her own research into Bourassa’s ancestry. “It makes you feel a bit sick,” she said. “To have an impostor who is speaking on behalf of Métis and Indigenous people to the country about literally what it means to be Métis … that’s very disturbing and upsetting and harmful.”
The university and the health agency initially supported Bourassa, though on Monday the university issued a statement saying it had “serious concerns with the additional information revealed in Dr Bourassa’s responses to the media.”