Buffy Sainte-Marie, a musician known for decades of Indigenous activism, says she’s always been honest that she doesn’t know the identity of her birth parents ahead of a CBC report expected to question her First Nations ancestry.
“I don’t know where I’m from or who my birth parents were, and I will never know. Which is why to be questioned in this way today is painful,” Sainte-Marie said Thursday in a statement.Sainte-Marie, who’s in her early 80s, said she was contacted last month by CBC and called allegations about her identity “deeply hurtful.”
Sainte-Marie also posted a video on social media addressing the upcoming episode, saying she has shared her story for 60 years. She called herself “a proud member of the Native community with deep roots in Canada.” Sainte-Marie has repeatedly spoken about her adoption, saying she is First Nations from Canada but was raised by Albert and Winifred Sainte-Marie, the latter who identified as part Mi’kmaq, in Massachusetts.
Opekokew said in an affidavit that she conducted interviews with First Nations people of the area at that time, including Noel Starblanket, a former national chief of the National Indian Brotherhood, which is now the Assembly of First Nations. Accounts of her life say Sainte-Marie searched for answers about her birth family early in her career, which led her to a Saskatchewan couple — Emile Piapot, grandson of then-chief of the Piapot reserve, and Clara Starblanket, daughter of the chief of the File Hills reserve.
“I was adopted into the Piapot family, not I was adopted out of Piapot reserve. That makes a big difference.”
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