Singer-songwriter Buffy Sainte-Marie said she returned her Order of Canada award “with a good heart,” adding that she never lied about her identity.
It was the 84-year-old singer’s first statement since she was stripped of the award earlier this year, CBC reported. She said that she is an American citizen and holds a U.S. passport, but added that she was adopted as a young adult by a Cree family in Saskatchewan.
The action comes more than one year after an investigation that found that Saint-Marie allegedly lied about her Indigenous heritage, People reported.
Governor General Mary Simon ended the appointment for the Academy Award-winner on Jan. 3. The order was signed by Ken MacKillop, the secretary general of the Order of Canada. The notice was posted in the government’s official publication on Feb. 7.
The Governor General’s website said that non-Canadians are eligible for the honor “if their contributions have brought benefit or honour to Canadians or to Canada.”
Sainte-Marie won an Oscar in 1982 for Best Original Song for co-writing “Up Where We Belong” for the film “An Officer and a Gentleman.” She was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 1995.
The singer said that she “made it completely clear” she was not Canadian to government representatives and to former prime minister Pierre Trudeau when he asked her to perform for Queen Elizabeth II in 1977, Variety reported.
In a statement issued on March 4, Sainte-Marie expressed her “love and gratitude to Canada” and said she is “overwhelmingly grateful that I’ve been able to make my contribution.”
“It was very lovely to host the medals for awhile, but I return them with a good heart,” she wrote. She added that she has “lived with uncertainty” about her parentage and unsuccessfully explored the possibility that she was born in Canada, Variety reported.
The termination of the appointment followed a CBC investigation that raised doubts about Sainte-Marie’s Indigenous heritage.
The singer’s Indigenous culture was a central part of her identity as she rose to fame during the 1960s, the news agency reported.
Sainte-Marie’s biography in the Canadian Music Hall of Fame states that she was born on a Plains Cree First Nation reserve in Saskatchewan on Feb. 20, 1941, and was adopted as an infant and raised in Maine and Massachusetts.
According to the CBC investigation, a birth certificate states that she was born in Massachusetts and that her birth name was Beverly Jean Santamaria.
The document lists the baby and parents as white and includes a signature of an attending physician — information CBC said is corroborated by Sainte-Marie’s marriage certificate, a life insurance policy and the United States census.
In November 2023, Sainte-Marie responded, the Toronto Star reported. He said she had never lied about her identity, and that the investigation report was full of mistakes and omissions. She said the story was an attack on her character, life and legacy.
“Being an ‘Indian’ has little to do with sperm tracking and colonial record keeping: it has to do with community, culture, knowledge, teachings, who claims you, who you love, who loves you and who’s your family,” Sainte-Marie said in a written statement to The Canadian Press.
In her latest statement, Sainte-Marie said the CBC report “didn’t interview anybody who knew me or my growing-up mother but instead constructed a false narrative and then asked people to comment on it.”
CBC spokesperson Chuck Thompson said the news organization stands by its reporting.
Sainte-Marie has released 16 studio albums, Variety reported. Her latest work, 2017′s “Medicine Songs,” contained new material and rerecordings of older works.
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