MUN hires external consultant to help develop Indigenous verification policy

Memorial University has hired an external consultant to help develop a policy around Indigenous verification.

Catharyn Andersen, vice-president of Indigenous matters at Newfoundland and Labrador's largest educational institution, said First Peoples Group — an Indigenous-led consulting firm out of Ottawa — answered an open call for the job.

"The scope of the work is essentially to conduct engagement sessions or consultations with groups throughout the province, but also internal to the university with Indigenous students, faculty and staff," Andersen said in a recent interview.

"That will help guide us toward the development of a policy around Indigenous verification."

In the wake of a CBC News story investigating then-MUN president Vianne Timmons's statements about her Indigenous heritage, Andersen said it became clear the university needed to move beyond self-identification.

"We're seeing that not only here at Memorial, but across the country, Indigenous peoples and communities are asking institutions, including universities, to move beyond self-identification," Andersen said.

"There have been a lot of conversations at the university and how we go about doing this."

Timmons was removed as president and vice-chancellor a month after the CBC Investigates story was published. The university vowed to work toward reconciliation with Indigenous students, faculty and staff.

Controversy about Indigenous ancestry

The CBC investigation explored Timmons's statements on her Indigenous ancestry and past membership in an unrecognized Mi'kmaw First Nation group.

Timmons has said she has always been careful to make the distinction that she has Mi'kmaw heritage but does not claim an Indigenous identity.

In July, after her departure from MUN, Timmons returned an Indspire award that had been bestowed upon her in 2019. The organization says the award is designated for Indigenous recipients only.

Vianne Timmons holds an eagle feather — a gift from a student — while accepting the Indspire Award for education at a ceremony in 2019. (CBC)

Andersen did not comment about her personal opinion on Timmons's past statements.

According to Andersen, the university held engagement sessions with Indigenous faculty, students and staff in the wake of Timmons's departure. The need to go beyond self-identification was evident at those sessions, Andersen said, as well as the harm that comes to Indigenous people from those who falsely claim to be Indigenous.

Andersen said Memorial University is watching how similar scenarios are playing out at other Canadian academic institutions.

A task force at Dalhousie University concluded that a verification process, by submitting a status card or other documentation, should be used. That's similar to what the University of Saskatchewan implemented earlier this year, after hiring a consultant in the midst of its own controversy around the issue of Indigenous identity.

First Peoples Group completed a review for Queen's University in June 2022 on the heels of allegations some staff falsified identities. The report's authors said they heard that, at a minimum, the validation policy for Queen's should include citizenship or membership cards, plus a professional reference and references from a family member and an elected First Nations, Inuit, or Métis leader.

Andersen said the stakes are high to get it right at Memorial University.

"We want to make sure that the people that are receiving the seats and scholarships, are actually Indigenous," Andersen said.

"We want to make sure that it is someone Indigenous who is teaching from an Indigenous perspective, from lived experience, from Indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing."

Roundtable never formed

Memorial University's board of regents had originally announced it would create an Indigenous roundtable "to consider the president's claims of Mi'kmaw heritage and provide guidance to the board on this matter."

But two months later, in an update posted in MUN's Gazette, the university said it was going in a different direction.

"We wanted to make sure that we were engaging people fairly in as unbiased a manner as possible, and we felt that engaging someone to help us do that would be the best way," Andersen explained.

"I think it's important to hear from Indigenous peoples themselves around what this means for them. And so it's critical that we engage with Indigenous communities and peoples, particularly here in Newfoundland and Labrador."

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