FIRST READING: Yet another prominent Indigenous Canadian who may not actually be Indigenous – National Post
Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond was once reportedly considered for the Supreme Court
Oct 14, 2022
Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond was often counted among the handful of Indigenous people who have received judicial appointments in Canada — and was reportedly a candidate to become the first Indigenous justice of the Supreme Court. She served as B.C.’s first Representative for Children and Youth and is now director of the Indian Residential School History and Dialogue Centre at the University of British Columbia.
And through it all, Turpel-Lafond has claimed Cree ancestry through her father, and even that she was a Treaty Indian. “I am a Cree person originally from the Prairies,” she said in 2019 testimony to a Senate committee.
CBC dug through the genealogical backgrounds of Turpel-Lafond’s parents, and found that while her father had lived in a Cree community in Norway House, Man., all his ancestors were ethnically European.
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