‘A deep betrayal:’ Indigenous community reacts to Dalhousie rescinding Buffy Sainte-Marie’s honorary degree
The degree was revoked following a review of the singer’s claims of Cree ancestry.
Dalhousie University rescinded Buffy Sainte-Marie’s honorary degree in December 2025, following a controversy surrounding her claims of Indigenous ancestry.
The university’s senate moved to revoke the degree after a 2023 CBC investigation unveiled evidence contradicting her claims of being a Cree woman.
The singer-songwriter received the honorary doctor of laws degree in April 2018. She had previously won seven Juno awards, which were stripped in March 2025.
Saint-Marie has received 14 honorary degrees from universities across Canada, but as of Feb. 8, Dalhousie is the only university to have revoked the award.
The decision followed a review by the Senate Honorary Degrees Committee, which oversees the selection and revocation process. Under Dalhousie’s honorary degree policy, the senate can initiate a revocation if it determines there are reasonable grounds that a recipient’s actions no longer reflect the institution’s “character and values.”
Patricia Doyle-Bedwell, a Mi’kmaw lawyer and Indigenous women’s rights activist, is the senate’s Indigenous Advisory Council representative and spoke in favour of revoking the degree. She said the news about Sainte-Marie’s identity left her in disbelief.
Doyle-Bedwell said she was “stunned” after watching the CBC documentary, Making an Icon, which followed the investigation into the artist’s Indigenous roots.
“I was like, ‘Oh my god, this woman was a hero to me from the time I was a little kid,’” said Doyle-Bedwell.
Doyle-Bedwell met Sainte-Marie three times, including at Dalhousie’s 2018 convocation ceremony, where the artist was honoured. She recalled the emotional weight of the day, saying that residential school survivors attended and drummed in Sainte-Marie’s honour.
“It was just an amazing ceremony,” she said.
When the news of the revocation broke, Doyle-Bedwell expected a stronger response from the singer.
“When they sent out the press release, I thought there might be more of a pushback from her, and there wasn’t — there was nothing.”
Ingrid Wasuek’jij (Little Flower) Kassem, member of the Sipekne’katik First Nation and co-president of the Dalhousie Indigenous Student Society, called the situation “nauseating.”
Kassem wants the school to move toward awarding “real degrees based on demonstrated work and knowledge” rather than symbolic titles that “borrow credibility” from the recipients.
“It should have been handled with full transparency and a public apology, not just for this decision, but in the broader context of truth and reconciliation,” she said.
“When decisions involve Indigenous icons, identity and institutional values, they affect entire communities. That requires openness, accountability and care, not closed-door decision making.”
While Kaseem didn’t have a personal connection to Sainte-Marie’s music, she said the situation remains an “open wound.”
“For a lot of us, it feels like a deep betrayal, [which] it is.”
