Universities move to address Indigenous identity fraud

Canada’s University of Saskatchewan (U of S) 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, writes Geoff Leo for CBC News.

“We believe that a key part of reconciliation is recognising that Indigenous communities define and verify their own memberships,” U of S President Peter Stoicheff was quoted as saying in a 27 November MN-S news release announcing the agreement. 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, Anishinaabe 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.

Jacqueline Ottmann, president of First Nations University of Canada (FNUniv) in Regina and a Fishing Lake First Nation member, said it is time for a national conversation on the issue and that FNUniv is willing to help by hosting an event featuring a national dialogue on the topic.
Full report on the CBC News site