Sometimes a good shaming is all you've got

It's hard to talk about Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond. 

I fully believe that the right thing is happening to her as she is held up to the searing light that the CBC's Geoff Leo has shone on her fictions. Pretending to be someone you're not feels especially egregious when high-privilege people fake low-privilege backgrounds. 

I am completely on the side of the betrayed Indigenous women who have had to experience a champion from within turning out to be nothing of the sort. All the worse that Turpel-Lafond purported to speak for them, and to have walked that same difficult road to success that Indigenous people so routinely have had to walk.

But it's still hard to watch. For a settler like me, it's also hard to talk about with my settler acquaintances. I can feel the grand discomfort we feel at watching a person whose past work we still admire experiencing a profound public shaming. 

We engage on the subject ever so carefully, tip-toeing around the astonishing betrayal and in the end, not saying much at all. I have exactly one non-Indigenous friend who I can fully engage with on the shocking subject of Turpel-Lafond, and we put our heads down and talk in low voices as if to hide that we've got strong thoughts on the matter.

And yet, these modern versions of a public stoning are important things to bear witness to. We do need to publicly shame those who engage in such blatant frauds. We do need to talk about the massive betrayal, and to reflect on and share the pieces that Indigenous women are writing about how this has impacted them.

Humiliation is both the way we punish and the way we deter when it comes to faking. It's literally the only way to punish those who come from privilege and fake an underprivileged back story - surely one of the most offensive kinds of fakery, given that the faker lays claim to space, key positions, prestige, money and air time that are routinely denied to underprivileged groups. 

And aren't there just a lot of fakers? That's what is really sinking in for me lately. Fake nurses, fake experts, fake college degrees, so many scammers. Grandparents scammed by fake grandsons. Whole police departments duped by modern-day snake-oil salesmen selling fake post-traumatic stress credentials.

Not that I think of Turpel-Lafond as a scammer. Her fakery feels so bizarre and recklessly self-destructive that my thoughts go toward her mental health instead. I have met people in both my personal and professional lives who have told themselves a made-up story for so long that they somehow come to believe it. 

I don't know if that's the case for her, but what else can explain the crazy risk she took by creating a persona and credentials that didn't belong to her? Did she think about this moment, when it all would fall apart and suddenly all would be revealed? 

Now we are left to reconsider everything Turpel-Lafond accomplished in her many significant years in high-profile positions. None of it is work that should be discounted automatically now that the truth is out, but I can't help but wonder how all of that work might have turned out had a real Indigenous person done it.

It's obvious that Indigenous people are struggling to talk about this one as well. The Union of BC Indian Chiefs issued a statement last fall confirming their support for Turpel-Lafond, who they described as a “fierce, ethical and groundbreaking advocate for Indigenous peoples for decades.”

They contended that issues of First Nations identity are for Indigenous peoples, families and governments to sort through based on their laws, customs and traditions, and condemned the initial CBC stories as “digging into private matters.”

But as other Indigenous people have repeatedly emphasized, she could have been that same fierce advocate without faking her background. Being a fierce advocate for Indigenous rights does not require that one pretends to be Indigenous.

Which Indigenous people went uncelebrated for their own contributions while Turpel-Lafond was receiving 11 honorary degrees under false pretences? 

Who might have authored the report into systemic racism toward Indigenous people in BC's health care system had that prestigious and well-paid work not gone to Turpel-Lafond? 

Who might have been the genuinely Indigenous representative for BC children and youth in a province where Indigenous children continue to be vastly over-represented in child apprehensions? What might they have done with a decade of their own in that vital position? 

What important perspectives from lived experience have been missed entirely in all of her work? What depths of wisdom went untapped because privileged space was taken up by somebody who hadn't had the life she said she'd had?

These things matter. In an era so fake that we can't even believe the things we see with our own eyes, authenticity of the person has never been more important. 

I feel for Turpel-Lafond in what must surely be an exquisitely painful time. But her deception has shaken the foundations of every good thing she did. We have all been hurt by her fakery, and Indigenous people most of all. 

***

Here's a November 2022 piece from the same CBC writer, this one on the report from Metis lawyer Jean Teillet on another Indigenous faker, Carrie Bourassa. 

People who pretend to be Indigenous feed off the ignorance of the non-Indigenous population, notes Teillet. "The fraudsters enact stereotypes they know will be recognized by the non-Indigenous audience. There is often silent and resentful recognition by Indigenous people that the performance is a stereotyped image of themselves."

Now's the time for scrutiny of BC government

We’re heading into a big year for B.C. Faltering economy, provincial election looming, massively expensive sporting event on the horizon - if ever there was a time for us citizens to take the measure of our government, this is it.
The election will be upon us in five months. In the run-up to it, B.C. politicians’ eyes will be on us for a change. We get such a chance no more than two or three times a decade - a brief window of opportunity for the public to capture the attention of politicians at a time when they’re highly motivated to listen.
Most of the politicians I know are good people wanting to do the right thing. But good intention isn’t the same thing as effective governance, something that the citizenry needs to be much more mindful of when choosing its politicians.
Are B.C.’s Liberals running an effective government? Before you head to the polls in May for the provincial election, make a New Year’s resolution to determine the answer to that.
Whatever you care about most - the environment, social problems, health care, taxes, school support - make it a priority to seek out information that will tell you whether the Liberals have been effective (The government’s own comprehensive Web site at www.gov.bc.ca is a great place to start.)
I’m a political agnostic, so will make no recommendations as to who to vote for when the time comes. My own vote remains undecided, except for saying “Yes” to electoral reform in the referendum happening at the same time as the election. I’ve seen no evidence in my years observing B.C.’s political scene that any party has all the answers.
Accountability is the watch word in my mind. Close to home, I note that newly elected Victoria Mayor Dean Fortin is promising in a Globe and Mail interview that there will be a resolution to homelessness in the downtown within six months. The Globe lists Fortin on a prestigious list of “Ten to Watch” in 2009, which I assume means he’s going to be working miracles this year.
It’s a wonderful bit of politicking, but the test is whether he means it. We’ll know soon enough by Fortin’s actions whether he’s the visionary leader we’ve been waiting for in the city, or if it’s all just more empty words leading nowhere. What’s important in the case at hand and anytime a politician makes promises is to hold them to what they said.
That they’re being held accountable at all times by the public ought to be a constant reality of any politician’s tenure, of course, not just at election time. We can’t be waiting three more years to hold the new Victoria council accountable for what it achieves around homelessness.
But it’s in the months before an election that politicians listen most intently. The 2009 provincial election is particularly important , not only because of the financial uncertainties B.C. is heading into over the next few years but also because a major electoral-reform referendum is being conducted at the same time with the potential to dramatically change the face of politics in B.C.
So it’s the public’s time in the sun now - to think about what matters and get some answers from government about its priorities and past performance. If we don’t like what we hear, government has five months to adjust course or risk losing our votes. Nice and direct.
What’s essential to the process, however, is public engagement. Go looking for the evidence that tells you whether government is doing its job. Keep score. Demand better. Extract commitments from those vying to be your MLA, and let them know you’ll be holding them accountable.
Read any reports you can find. Search the Mansard records on the government Web site. Follow the money. Read media coverage, but never rely on it exclusively.
Whoever you choose to vote for, do what you can to establish the person’s performance record. Accountability is vital, but what’s even more important is to know before we elect somebody that they’re up to the challenge.
It’s more difficult to establish a candidate’s performance record if he or she isn’t in government right now or has never run for office before, but you can still learn a lot these days from a Google search and visiting a few good blog sites.
For my part, I’ll spend the next few months trying to take the measure of the government’s performance for my column. But the wisdom will come from all of us. Effective government starts with electing effective people, and we’ve got five precious months ahead of us to figure that out.