When's the right time to tell the truth and other questions

Buffy Sainte-Marie, myths and the media

I’ve been stuck at home all week so I watched the Fifth Estate’s investigation into Buffy Sainte-Marie’s claims to Indigenous ancestry. I watched it mainly because I saw so many different reactions online that I wanted to see what was generating all the conflicting responses.

For those who haven’t seen it, the CBC investigation seriously undermines Sainte-Marie’s claim to Indigeneity and provides compelling evidence to suggest she wasn’t born in Canada or adopted out of the Piapot Cree reserve as has been assumed.

Before the show aired, Sainte-Marie issued a statement denying the allegation that she’s misled people about her Indigenous background and lamenting the hurtful nature of the investigation itself. Shoring up her support, Sainte-Marie’s Piapot First Nation family have publicly supported her and make it clear that, birth certificate or not, her claim to kinship has a firm basis. 

There is a very real case to be made that the CBC investigation is largely mean-spirited —Sainte-Marie is aged and boasts an inspiring dedication not only to advocating for First Nations communities but also in increasing knowledge of the harms Canada has done to those communities. It would be a tragedy to see those values undermined in service of simply more cynicism.

But one of the more interesting reactions I saw to the CBC investigation into Sainte-Marie’s claims, however, came via Twitter. 

Last week author Robert Jago tweeted about the CBC investigation: “They don’t mention the only really harmful fraud she’s actually guilty of – getting that Can-Con money. It’s weird that isn’t the story, impersonating a Canadian.”

That insight made me laugh because it’s such an obvious point, but an entirely meaningful one. A Canadian icon may not actually be Canadian but got away with selling that lucrative illusion for decades? Imagine that story? 

In addition to being an almost comic insight – I mean, who the hell is pretending to be Canadian — Jago’s point opens the discussion up to include more than just Sainte-Marie’s human complications or the complex realities behind the Pretendian phenomenon overall. By forcing the focus to expand beyond certain trending impulses that indiscriminately hurt the First Nations communities for whom Sainte-Marie is an ally and inspiration, it implicates the volume of media myth-making that went into weaving Sainte-Marie into Canada’s national identity in the first place.

Imagine the documentary that could result from drawing that aspect into the story? What a rich narrative it would be if CBC were to be reflective of its own status as both creator and destroyer of Canadian icons! Because Sainte-Marie may have had her story, but her mythology was a joint creation that was mutually beneficial. Sainte-Marie and media worked hand in hand – until they didn’t. 

The enduring question of ‘why tell this story now?’ thus becomes more complicated and interesting too. For its part, the documentary touches on some early media skepticism about Sainte-Marie’s claims in the 1960s and 70s. But it’s telling that no one thought that story was worth pursuing too far then, possibly because she was at the height of her fame or possibly because no one wanted a potentially messy and litigious truth to get in the way of a great story that appeared to be serving the greater good. 

These are the questions that remain uninterrogated in the CBC investigation. But they are nonetheless rich complications to contemplate whenever stories like these are told.

What kind of cultural timing does truth-telling need? And how does that timing compete with the impulses of storytelling overall? What does a legacy of goodwill built upon shaky personal foundations amount to in the long run?

Trying to answer those questions compels my imagination just as much as trying to untangle Sainte-Marie’s own complicated human story does.