Boissonnault out of cabinet after shifting claims about Indigenous heritage
Alberta MP under fire over allegations about business dealings
Alberta MP Randy Boissonnault has resigned from cabinet amid allegations about his business dealings and criticism of his shifting claims about his Indigenous ancestry.
"The prime minister and MP Randy Boissonnault have agreed that Mr. Boissonnault will step away from cabinet effective immediately. Mr. Boissonnault will focus on clearing the allegations made against him," a spokesperson for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in a statement.
Veterans Affairs Minister Ginette Petitpas Taylor will temporarily assume responsibility for Boissonnault's employment and workforce development portfolio and official languages.
NDP MP Blake Desjarlais, who is himself Métis from Alberta, welcomed Boissonnault's resignation Wednesday.
He accused Boissonnault of "race-shifting" and being a "Pretendian" — a term associated with people who falsely claim to be Indigenous.
"This is a clear signal to Pretendians across the country. If you pretend to be Indigenous for purpose of accessing Indigenous benefits, funding or prestige, you will be found out. We will find you," Desjarlais told reporters.
Desjarlais said Indigenous constituents in Edmonton have long had questions about Boissonnault's claims to Indigeneity but could never get a straight answer.
"It's been difficult for us to call out this kind of behaviour," he said.
Fellow NDP MP Don Davies said Trudeau waited too long to push Boissonnault out, given the nature of the allegations against him. He said Trudeau and the Liberal government "lack a strong ethical compass."
Liberal MP Jaime Battiste, a Mi'kmaq from Cape Breton and the chair of the party's Indigenous caucus, said Boissonnault never told him he's Indigenous in the five years they have worked together.
"When I hear people saying he's a fake, he's a phoney in the House, that's not accurate," Battiste said.
"He's never claimed to be Indigenous to me. He said he had family members who are Indigenous. Truthfully, there's no one definition for Indigenous people in Canada."
In a media statement, Assembly of First Nations (AFN) National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak said she's been "deeply troubled" by the allegations against Boissonnault.
"Misrepresentation harms the integrity of Indigenous identity and is disrespectful to the experiences of First Nations people who face systemic barriers tied to their identities. It also undermines the progress we have worked so hard to achieve," she said.
Nepinak called for better verification to ensure people claiming to be Indigenous are really Indigenous.
"This issue highlights serious failings in the systems meant to support First Nations. Stronger verification measures are required to prevent similar instances in the future," she said.
Boissonnault has been at the centre of controversy for months.
The House of Commons ethics committee has been probing whether Boissonnault continued to work with one of his former businesses after joining Trudeau's cabinet.
That business — Global Health Imports (GHI), a medical supplies company he co-founded at the outset of the pandemic — has bid on federal contracts in the past.
Some text messages released through legal proceedings show Boissonnault's former business partner, Stephen Anderson, referring to a person named "Randy" in business conversations with associates, prompting questions about whether Anderson was still consulting Boissonnault on business matters while he sat as a member of Trudeau's cabinet.
It would be a serious breach of the ethics law for a sitting cabinet minister to run a business that's also seeking federal work.
Boissonnault has denied having any involvement in the business since he was re-elected in 2021. He has accused Anderson of using his name without his consent to gain influence. He has denied being the "Randy" cited in Anderson's text messages.
The story took a turn earlier this month when the National Post reported that Boissonnault's former company, GHI, claimed to be "Indigenous-owned" when bidding for a federal contract in 2020.
Last week, Boissonnault apologized for shifting claims about the Indigenous heritage of some family members.
While the Liberal Party referred to him several years ago as one of their caucus's elected Indigenous members, Boissonnault has said since he "never clicked any box on any form" with the party.
Boissonnault has said he stopped sitting with the Liberal Indigenous caucus when he joined cabinet in 2021. He said that when he sat with that caucus previously, it was in the role of an ally.
Boissonnault has referred to his adoptive great-grandmother repeatedly in public statements as a "full-blooded" Cree woman. He was given a Cree name in 2021, spoke Cree at least twice in parliamentary proceedings and self-identified as an "non-status adopted Cree."
His office has since clarified that his adoptive great-grandmother's family in fact had Métis heritage, and Boissonnault's past statements about Cree ancestry were based on "what he believed to be accurate his whole life."
When Boissonnault co-owned the company, GHI also shared a post office box with a woman named in arrests in two major drug busts, the Post has reported. Boissonnault has said he doesn't know the woman in question.
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With files from the CBC's Kate McKenna