Betty Nippi-Albright said, “The way things are now, it’s not good enough.
The NDP, the party in opposition, wants to know when the Saskatchewan government will come up with a plan to make sure jobs aren’t filled by people who falsely claim to be Indigenous.
“When false claims are made, there is no one to blame. The way things are now isn’t good enough,” During question period on Wednesday, Betty Nippi-Albright, the NDP’s critic for First Nations and Métis Relations and Truth and Reconciliation, said the following:
Lori Carr, who is in charge of the Public Service Commission, the government’s main human resources agency, says that the provincial government relies on self-declaration for things like identity and disability.
But investigations by CBC News into well-known people like Carrie Bourassa, Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, and, most recently,Vianne Timmons used to be president of the University of Regina., have brought up doubts about their Indigenous roots.
People who falsely claim Indigenous ancestry are sometimes called “pretendians,” and they can use self-declaration to get jobs and move up in their careers. In doing so, they take opportunities away from Indigenous people, who have a right to them.
Carr said that people who say they are Indigenous don’t have a better chance of getting a job unless they have a title like “First Nations consultant.”
Nippi-Albright disagreed.
She wants the government to make employees or potential employees who say they are Indigenous sign an attestation form. This way, if they are audited, they will have to show proof of their identity.
“At the government level, we know that there are a lot of people in these jobs who are not who they say they are.” “It’s very common,” she told me.
“If you don’t have anything to hide, you’ll show it.”
She said that one way the government can protect Indigenous people is by making sure they can prove who they are. She also said that pretending to be Indigenous is a form of colonial violence.
In response to Nippi-question Albright’s during question period, Minister of Advanced Education Gordon Wyant said that the Saskatchewan government feels the same way and takes the issue seriously.
He told anyone who has concerns about people who falsely claim to be Indigenous to bring them up so that the “appropriate authority” can deal with them.
Carr said that the government will have to look into self-declaration in the future.
She said that since it hasn’t been brought up as a problem at the Public Service Commission, such an examination hasn’t been done yet.