American singer-songwriter Buffy Sainte-Marie has been stripped of extra Canadian music awards and honors.
On Friday, the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences stated it was revoking the Juno Awards and the Canadian Music Corridor of Fame prizes earlier given to the Oscar winner. The transfer follows a 2023 investigation by the CBC’s The Fifth Property collection that alleged Sainte-Marie had been fraudulently posing as Native all through her 60-year profession.
The singer-songwriter earlier this week confirmed she had returned her Order of Canada honor – the nation’s highest civilian honor – after she confirmed she’s an American citizen and holds a U.S. passport, however insisted she had been adopted as a younger grownup by a Cree household in Saskatchewan. In a press release, CARAS confirmed Sainte-Marie was American, making her ineligible for Canadian music prizes and honors.
“Following an intensive assessment, consultations with the CARAS Indigenous Music Advisory Committee, and in mild of latest data, together with Ms. Sainte-Marie’s affirmation that she will not be Canadian, CARAS will revoke Buffy Sainte-Marie’s Juno Awards and Canadian Music Corridor of Fame induction in accordance with its eligibility necessities,” the Juno Awards organizer said.
Sainte-Marie, in 1982, received an Oscar for finest unique tune for co-writing “Up The place We Belong” as a part of the rating for the film An Officer and a Gentleman. She shared the trophy with lyricist Will Jennings and co-writer Jack Nitzsche.
Her licensed biography said she was born in 1941 on Cree land within the Canadian province of Saskatchewan and faraway from her start household and adopted by a white American household, the Sainte-Maries, as a part of a infamous authorities coverage generally known as the Sixties Scoop.
However the CBC present claimed it had discovered Sainte-Marie’s purported start certificates, which said that she was born in 1941 in Stoneham, Massachusetts, to Albert and Winifred Santamaria, her supposed adoptive mother and father, who’re listed as white.
Additionally on Friday, organizers of the celebrated Polaris Music Prize introduced that they had revoked two awards earlier given to Sainte-Marie after affirmation that she was not a Canadian citizen.