How Carrie Bourassa handed herself off as indigenous for years

Carrie Bourassa’s Instagram web page describes her as an “Indigenous feminist” and “proud Metis” with an dependancy to lattes.

Solely her penchant for caffeine was true.

Bourassa, a professor within the division of neighborhood well being and epidemiology on the College of Saskatchewan and a number one skilled on indigenous points, has been uncovered as a fraud. A household tree ready by a bunch of lecturers who have been suspicious of her ancestral claims reveals that Bourassa is of Swiss, Hungarian, Polish and Czechoslovakian origins and has not one ounce of indigenous blood.

But for many years, Bourassa has recognized herself as Métis — a bunch acknowledged as one in every of Canada’s aboriginal peoples, together with First Nations and Inuit. She additionally claims some traces of Tlingit and Anishinaabe heritage in her background.

“Once I was very younger, I knew I used to be not a Caucasian individual,” Bourassa lately instructed the Saskatoon Star Phoenix. “I knew there was one thing very completely different about me.”

In a 2019 Tedx Speak, Bourassa wore a blue woven cloak and held a feather as she launched herself as Morning Star Bear, a spirit identify translated from the Tlingit language. She stated she grew up in a dysfunctional household that struggled with alcoholism and violence within the western Canadian metropolis of Regina. Her solely saving grace was the Métis grandfather she referred to as “gramps,” who took her on excursions to tan hides, choose berries and gave her moccasins and mukluks — boots fabricated from sealskin worn within the Canadian Arctic.

However after a current report by Canada’s nationwide broadcaster, the CBC, raised severe questions on Bourassa’s heritage, the College of Saskatchewan introduced final month that it had positioned her on paid depart whereas it conducts a sweeping impartial investigation into her origins led by an lawyer who’s an skilled on indigenous regulation.

Bourassa was additionally suspended as scientific director of the indigenous well being department of the Canadian Institutes of Well being Analysis. In current days, college directors and indigenous leaders throughout the nation, who historically depend on self-identification in figuring out indigenous ancestry, are calling for extra rigorous requirements.

“It’s a loopy story,” stated Caroline Tait, a Métis professor of medical anthropology on the College of Saskatchewan who has labored with Bourassa for greater than 10 years and lately helped expose Bourassa’s origins. “It’s loopy that she bought away with it for therefore lengthy. The entire nation is horrified.”

Carrie Bourassa, 48, grew up in a white middle-class household in Regina, the capital of Saskatchewan with a inhabitants of slightly below 240,000 residents. Her father, Ron Weibel, was a small businessman who owned automobile cleansing firms within the metropolis.

“We lived in Regina most of our lives, married younger, had two kids, began companies of our personal, one in every of which we ran for over 30 years,” stated Weibel on his web site, Berry Hills Estates, which sells customized houses close to Katepwa Lake resort, an hour exterior Regina.

“Our lives have been hectic, to say the least, with two retailers to run and two daughters with faculty and sports activities actions, we have been at all times on the go!” continued Weibel, who’s the president of Berry Hills Developments, in response to his LinkedIn web page.

However Bourassa remembers her childhood in another way, and credited her grandfather for serving to her escape a grim existence.

Within the introduction to her 2017 ebook, “Listening to the Beat of Our Drum: Indigenous Parenting in Modern Society,” Bourassa describes her grandfather urging her to get an schooling to flee the poverty and violence that was rampant in her household, which included an alcoholic grandmother and absent dad and mom.

“My gramps was gently whispering to me, and telling me I might be protected,” wrote Bourassa. “However he stated one thing else — he stated, ‘My lady, you’ll be the one to cease this. You’ll develop as much as be a physician or a lawyer. You do not need to be like this. You hear me?’”

Household images inform a special story. Bourassa is pictured as just a little lady together with her white maternal grandparents, Ladislav and Gertrude Knezacek. Ladislav, who was born in Saskatchewan in 1928, can also be pictured in uniform. His household originated in Hungary, and Ladislav seems nothing just like the Métis “gramps” Bourassa describes in her speeches. Gertrude’s household arrived in Canada from Bohemia, part of Czechoslovakia, earlier than she was born in 1933. One other picture reveals Bourassa, her husband, Chad, and their two daughters fortunately celebrating Christmas.

Bourassa went on to change into probably the most necessary indigenous well being consultants in Canada. Along with her educating place on the College of Saskatchewan, she was scientific director of the Canadian Institutes of Well being Analysis Institute of Indigenous Peoples’ Well being, a federal company that helps distribute tens of millions of {dollars} in grants for indigenous well being analysis in Canada. Bourassa as soon as bragged that she made almost $400,000 as an instructional, a supply instructed The Publish.

In her private narrative, Bourassa has lengthy credited Clifford LaRocque, a Métis elder, lengthy deceased, with serving to her establish with the group when she was in her early 20s. She stated LaRocque adopted her after he claimed to have researched her ancestry in 2002. Bourassa instructed the CBC that she by no means noticed the proof he stated he discovered. “He was a well-respected chief in my neighborhood,” Bourassa instructed a Canadian Senate panel in June 2012. “He knew lots of the Métis households. Though many people had gaps in our histories, he was in a position to assist fill these gaps together with his immense historic and geographical information.”

Each Bourassa and her youthful sister, Jody Burnett, started to establish as Métis as younger ladies. The designation got here with a couple of perks, specifically hundreds of {dollars} in academic grants that the federal authorities usually fingers out to indigenous Canadians. Each Bourassa and her sister would go on to earn PhDs of their respective fields. Burnett has a doctorate in academic psychology, and Bourassa earned her PhD in 2008 in indigenous well being. Burnett didn’t return The Publish’s requests for remark.

Within the introduction to her thesis, which she accomplished in March 2008, Bourassa thanks the Weibels for his or her help. “I might additionally prefer to thank my dad and mom, Ron and Diane Weibel who sacrificed in order that I might obtain my dream. You will have been cheering me on and inspiring me from the very starting and I’m so blessed to have you ever as my dad and mom.”

Calls and an e-mail to her dad and mom weren’t returned this week.

Bourassa continued to establish as Métis as she rose in academe. However her sister renounced her personal identification. Burnett hasn’t claimed to be Métis since 2014, she instructed the CBC, when her “husband accomplished a household tree via a genealogical software program program. From that time on, I didn’t really feel sure of my heritage and as such, have stopped figuring out as Métis.”

Burnett’s determination to cease figuring out as Métis angered Bourassa. In a 2018 e-mail to Tait seen by The Publish, Bourassa wrote, “My sister bought hundreds of {dollars} in Métis scholarships that put her via her Masters and PhD and I used to be so proud at first — till she was completed after which would don’t have anything to do with the Métis individuals who supported her.”

Tait and different lecturers started to have doubts about Bourassa after a scholar questioned her background a couple of years in the past, Tait instructed The Publish.

“We started to map out her kinship,” stated Tait. The trouble resulted in a 77-page grievance that she and different lecturers introduced to the College of Saskatchewan earlier this 12 months. “We went to the varsity hat in hand and requested them if they may please take this on as a result of we noticed it for example of analysis misconduct. Plenty of us depend on Carrie for funding our initiatives, and the entire thing simply appeared mistaken.”

When college directors refused to behave on the grievance, Tait enlisted the assistance of the CBC. “On the time that they denied the declare, I instructed them we might work with a journalist to make all of it public,” she stated. “There’s been monumental outrage throughout the nation over this.”

Bourassa, a mom of two daughters who’s married to a retired Regina cop who additionally identifies as Métis, didn’t return The Publish’s requires remark, however has stated that she has twice traced her personal roots and has acquired memberships in native Métis teams in Regina. She stated she didn’t take positions or funding away from indigenous individuals however constructed her profession solely on her personal advantage.

A press launch issued on her behalf by Staff Bourassa — “an Indigenous collective who select anonymity presently” — stated she is exercising her proper to self-identify as indigenous and has not inappropriately taken alternatives or academic funding from indigenous individuals.

“Dr. Carrie Bourassa has not falsely recognized as Indigenous nor taken area away from Indigenous peoples, both within the type of scholar funding, grants or profession developments,” the assertion stated. “She has earned her skilled standing and advantage via arduous work, self-funding and sheer dedication.”