Buffy Saint-Marie’s Order of Canada designation has been rescinded, in line with a statement printed yesterday (February 8) within the Canada Gazette, the Canadian Authorities’s official newspaper. It reads: “Discover is hereby on condition that the appointment of Buffy Sainte-Marie to the Order of Canada was terminated by Ordinance signed by the Governor Basic on January 3, 2025.”
Saint-Marie, who rose to prominence within the Sixties as a singer-songwriter and early digital music innovator, was initially Officer of the Order of Canada in 1997, and promoted to the title of Companion in 2017. Nevertheless, a 2023 documentary series and report launched by the Canadian Broadcasting Firm (CBC) known as Saint-Marie’s Indigenous heritage into query when a beginning certificates obtained by CBC listed her dad and mom as a white couple from Massachusetts. She had beforehand claimed she was born on the Piapot First Nation reserve in Canada’s Saskatchewan province.
In response, Saint-Marie shared a number of video and print statements. “I’ve all the time struggled to reply questions on who I’m,” she wrote in November 2023. “For many years, I attempted to search out my beginning dad and mom and details about my background. By means of that analysis what turned clear, and what I’ve all the time been sincere about: I don’t know the place I’m from or who my beginning dad and mom are, and I’ll by no means know. Which is why, to be questioned on this approach is painful, each for me, and for my two households I like so dearly.” Pitchfork has reached out to representatives for Saint-Marie for remark.
