A British Columbia judge is warning that what he calls a “tsunami” of Indigenous identity fraud cases is coming to Canadian courts.
Provincial Court Judge David Patterson says that’s driven by the “desire” of non-Indigenous people to access what they deem to be benefits of identifying as Indigenous.
He says judges must be “alive to the issue” and require proof that ensures an offender is entitled to be sentenced as an Indigenous person.
A set of guidelines known as Gladue factors requires courts to consider an Indigenous person’s background during sentencing.
That could include family trauma, poverty and whether being separated from their culture could have contributed to their offence.
Judge Patterson found in the ruling that the accused person in the case provided questionable and inadequate claims to Métis identity that were based on “family lore” that his great-great-grandmother was indigenous.
In the case, pastor Nathan Allen Joseph Legault was convicted on charges related to child pornography.
Mr. Legault argued in the case that he understood himself to be Métis because his ancestor was part of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy.
Judge Patterson said in the ruling that the self-identification meant Gladue factors should be considered.
But he determined that Mr. Legault did not meet the criteria to have such factors apply in his case, and his family history did not “negatively” affect him in a way that would be legally meaningful.
