Buffy Sainte-Marie’s Juno and Polaris Music Awards Rescinded

variety.com:

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Canada’s two most prestigious musical honors, the Juno and Polaris Awards, have rescinded singer-songwriter Buffy Saint-Marie’s past awards due to her recent acknowledgement that she is not a Canadian citizen, according to the CBC.

Earlier this week, the singer, whose purported Indigenous lineage has been called into question amid controversy, returned her Order of Canada “with a good heart” and restated that she never claimed to be Canadian.

In her first comment since she was stripped of the award in February, Sainte-Marie, 84, said that she is an American citizen and holds a U.S.

passport, but was adopted as a young adult by a Cree family in Saskatchewan. An Oscar-winning songwriter and Canadian Music Hall of Fame inductee, Saint-Marie has for decades been associated with the struggles of Native Americans and is known for the anti-war song “Universal Soldier” and stolen-land lament “Now That the Buffalo’s Gone.” She was officially stripped of the prestigious Order of Canada appointment, the country’s highest honor presented to a civilian, in January.