Buffy Sainte-Marie is being forced to return the Canadian prizes and recognitions she has received over the decades after discovering that she is American and not Canadian. Last month, Sainte-Marie returned the order of Canada that was given to him in 1997 and, in recent days, he has lost the awards he has received from the Polaris and Juno, two of the most important musical awards in Canada.
Both have retired their prizes to Buffy Sainte-Marie because the author of ‘Universal Soldier’ no longer “meets the criteria” to maintain them. Sainte-Marie won the Polaris in 2015 for her album On the other hand, Juno has retired to Sainte-Marie all his distinctions, including the Humanitarian Juno Award in 2015 and the Indigenous Album Award for the ‘Medicine Songs’, of 2018.
Sainte-Marie conserves-for the moment-the Oscar for Best Original Song that won in 1983 by ‘Up Where We Belong’, the main song of ‘Officer and Caballero’ (1982), historically associated with the struggle of the Native Americans and played by Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes, and of which he is co-author. Sainte-Marie, 84, is known for her activism for the rights of native populations and other environmental and social justice causes.
The revelation about the true identity of Sainte-Marie arrived in October 2023 through a CBC report. The Canadian medium could prove that Sainte-Marie was actually born in Stoneham, Massachusetts, and not in the Piapot Cree First Nations reserve in Qu’appelle Valley, Saskatchewan. CBC also found ancient statements of Sainte-Marie in which the artist claimed to have been born in the CREE people reserve and that this was “her tribe”, against what his birth certificate showed.
When returning his order from Canada, Sainte-Marie has acknowledged that he is an American citizen and that he has a passport from the United States and explained that, although he was born in the United States, he was adopted by a family believes in Saskatchewan “when he was young.” Sainte-Marie has assured that she has never claimed to be Canadian and that she has never hidden her true nationality: “I have never treated my citizenship as a secret and most of my friends and family in Canada knew that I am American, and it has never been a problem.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fouzwpghj7e
