Buffy Saint-Marie’s Order of Canada designation has been rescinded, in accordance with an announcement revealed yesterday (February 8) within the Canada Gazette, the Canadian Authorities’s official newspaper. It reads: “Discover is hereby provided that the appointment of Buffy Sainte-Marie to the Order of Canada was terminated by Ordinance signed by the Governor Common on January 3, 2025.”
Saint-Marie, who rose to prominence within the Sixties as a singer-songwriter and early digital music innovator, was initially made an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1997, and promoted to the title of Companion in 2017. A 2023 documentary collection and report launched by the Canadian Broadcasting Firm (CBC), nonetheless, referred to as Saint-Marie’s Indigenous heritage into query when a start certificates obtained by CBC listed her mother and father 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 at all times struggled to reply questions on who I’m,” she wrote in November 2023. “For many years, I attempted to seek out my start mother and father and details about my background. By that analysis what grew to become clear, and what I’ve at all times been sincere about: I don’t know the place I’m from or who my start mother and father are, and I’ll by no means know. Which is why, to be questioned on this means is painful, each for me, and for my two households I like so dearly.”
Pitchfork has reached out to representatives for Saint-Marie for touch upon the brand new termination of her honor.
