On Friday, November 5, there was a demonstration at the University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon campus, predominantly involving Indigenous students. The second demonstration within a month was this time centred on the scandal involving Dr Carrie Bourassa who had been feigning Métis heritage while a professor in the department of community health and epidemiology at the University of Saskatchewan, where she directs the Morning Star Lodge, an Indigenous community-based health research lab. She was also considered “one of the country’s most esteemed indigenous health experts.” In fact she, as one Métis colleague who suspected the truth for years, had “not one drop of Métis blood”.
As socialists, we do not believe you must have a “pure uninterrupted bloodline” to define one’s heritage. The Métis themselves are descendants of Indigenous peoples and European settlers. What this scandal is truly about is a Caucasian person believing it is okay to appropriate a culture, where there are literally murdered children being discussed everyday, and gaining a top career on this basis. This is the legacy of over 400 years of Canadian colonialism, just as the “white man’s burden” was taking Indigenous land that the “Indians had not cultivated correctly.” Now it is their culture that has to be rescued by the civilized Europeans.
Just like dream catchers and ceremonial headdresses this is a modern form of blackface, whether metaphorical or literal such as the scandal involving Rachel Dolezal, president of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) chapter in Spokane, Washington, from 2014 until June 2015, who darkened her skin and permed her hair. A recycled excuse especially by Bourassa and Dolezal’s defenders is defining one’s racial identity is the same as the struggle based by those who have been persecuted for their sexuality or gender. Dolezal even once remarked “that race is more fluid than gender because race is an entirely social construct.” The Guardian columnist Claire Hynes wrote, “Dolezal is correct to argue that race is largely a social construct rather than a science,” but “what defines people of colour is a limited ability to control how we are viewed, and a lack of freedom to ‘write our own stories’.”
While right wing pundits from the Murdoch gutter press believe that one might change their gender to win female sporting events, it is certainly true that once Bourassa identified as Métis, especially on a widely circulated TED talk, the dollars came pouring in. According to a colleague, Caroline Tait, a Métis professor and medical anthropologist at the U of Sask, who has worked with Bourassa for more than a decade, this change in identity accelerated as her popularity increased.
She said early on in Bourassa’s career, she only identified as Métis. But more recently, Tait said, Bourassa began claiming to also be Anishinaabe and Tlingit. Tait said she also began dressing in more stereotypically Indigenous ways, saying the TEDx Talk was a perfect example. “She is not Métis. She is the modern-day Grey Owl,” Tait said, referring to the famous British-born conservationist from the early 1900s who fooled the world into believing he was a Native American man. Unlike the struggles of minority groups and the LGBTQ+, which are deeply personal, this was a career choice that the capitalist system can get behind in our world of “doing whatever it takes to make it.”
Perhaps this is why initially the Provost and Vice President of U Sask stood firm behind Bourassa on October 28 stating “Professor Bourassa was not hired by the university because of her Indigenous status, and Indigenous ancestry was not a requirement of the role. The quality of Professor Bourassa’s scholarly work speaks for itself and has greatly benefitted the health of communities across Canada.” One may have believed that the PR management had the day off with that statement, which in between the lines says, “it does not matter what your ancestry is to be a Professor of Indigenous Health and whatever this shows white people do it better anyway.”
It was only when the scandal became a PR nightmare as the CBC exclusive went viral did the U of Sask management suddenly grow a conscience due to “new evidence” and on November 1st placed “Dr. Bourassa on leave and she is relieved of all her duties as professor in the U Sask College of Medicine in the Department of Community Health and Epidemiology. Dr Bourassa will not return to any faculty duties during this investigation. “
When speaking about the protest on campus, provost Dr. Airini quite blithely emailed “Reconciliation is a journey, and sometimes it will be complex and messy.” Complex and messy, huh? I think the best responses come from the Métis students. Osawa Kiniw Kayseas was a student at the First Nations University of Canada and the University of Regina when Bourassa was a professor. “We’re very welcoming people, and when trust is broken it’s hard to repair that,” she said. “How did she get that work done?” she asked. “Was she going to our elders claiming to be Métis and gaining trust through her (apparent Métis status)?”
Truth and Reconciliation can only go so far. In Capitalist Canada under Trudeau, the Métis and Indigenous cultural experience is just one other item to have a dollar sign placed above. Only when there is a Socialist government that respects all nations’ rights to self determination, including independence, can healing truly start between Indigenous peoples and the descendants of settlers.
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