Employment Minister Randy Boissonnault said that after “reflecting on this a lot over the past days” he “unequivocally” apologizes for not being “clear” about alluding to having an Indigenous heritage.
“I was adopted into an Indigenous family, and I have never claimed Indigenous status,” Boisonnault told reporters in Ottawa on Friday.
His apology comes after an Indigenous researcher that Boissionault claimed told him he was “non-status adopted Cree” refuted his claim.
“I sought out advice to know how to talk about my family when I was running, and I want to say unequivocally that I apologize for not being as clear about my family history as I could have been with everything that I know now,” said Boissonnault.
The president of the Metis nation had also come forward to say that the members of Boissonnault’s adoptive family agree that the cabinet minister wouldn’t qualify for citizenship under its rules.
Assistant professor of political science at the University of Toronto and member of the Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg Nation Chadwick Cowie was the expert who Boissonnault said informed of his status.
However, after being contacted by the National Post regarding Boissonault’s ever-changing identity claims, Cowie responded by saying, “I would not say that I gave him the term that he was ‘non-status adopted Cree.’”
“I would have worded it differently,” added Cowie. “I would have said that he was adopted to a family that had Cree lineage.”
However, Cowie noted that he never saw Boissonnault use such claims while campaigning to win his Edmonton in 2015, which he won. He would later regain the seat in 2021 after losing it in 2019.
Boissonnault has made contradictory statements about his identity and heritage in the past, including in an interview with the online LGBTQ magazine Xtra, where he was quoted as saying he was “a white, cisgender member of the community.”
Boissonnault was also among nine MPs in the Liberals party’s Indigenous caucus in 2016 during his first term, however, he was not included in a Liberal press release identifying the eight Indigenous Liberals who won their seats in the September 2015 federal election.
Additionally, Bossonnault told the Canadian Press that he was “non-status adoptive Cree” in 2017 and that his heritage could be traced back to a maternal great-grandmother in the family that adopted him.
Boissonnault routinely referenced his great-grandmother in Parliament before being voted out in the 2019 election, however, upon winning the Edmonton Centre seat in 2021, his name was removed from the Liberal Indigenous caucus list.
The employment minister is currently under fire for claiming that the company he once co-owned, Global Health Imports, was Indigenous-owned while bidding on federal contracts.
The information came to light when parliamentary hearings reviewed the Procurement Strategy for Indigenous Business, a federal procurement program designed to boost the Indigenous economy.
The hearings are part of an inquiry launched in response to suspicions that the program was being exploited by companies falsely claiming they were Indigenous-owned businesses.
Alice Hansen, a spokeswoman for Boissonnault, said that the Indigenous heritage claims were made by his business partner without his consent and that Boissonnault’s changing identity is a “reflection of his family exploring their own history.”
According to Cowie, after Boissonnault told him he had a Cree great-grandmother, he informed him that it was more realistic that he was someone who has non-status Cree lineage.
“I thought that was his biological great-grandmother,” said Cowie. “I misunderstood probably… that he was (a) descendant of someone who had been adopted out, not that he was adopted into a family that had Indigenous lineage.”
The term “adopted” in this context generally refers to someone who was adopted by an Indigenous community as a member, noted Cowie, regardless of their status or membership as observed by the government.
“The adoptive thing makes it sound like he is, you know, (Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond), or he is Buffy Sainte-Marie,” said Cowie, referring to other well-known Canadians who have had their Indigenous heritage claims questioned.
“If I said adopted, that means he’s been adopted into a community,” Cowie says. “That’s what I get when I see the word.”
Boissonnault did not respond to True North’s request for comment.