Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond

Mary Ellen Elizabeth Turpel-Lafond (born February 1963) is a Canadian lawyer, law professor, judge, and legislative advocate for children's rights.

Turpel-Lafond worked on land claims with the Indian Law Resource Center in Washington, DC, and served as a legal and constitutional adviser to aboriginal leaders. She has taught at Dalhousie University, the University of Toronto, and the University of Notre Dame, and has served as a judge on the Provincial Court of Saskatchewan. Time magazine named Turpel-Lafond as one of the "100 Global Leaders of Tomorrow" in 1994; in 1999, Time honoured her as one of the "Top 20 Canadian Leaders for the 21st Century". Turpel-Lafond also served as British Columbia's first Representative for Children and Youth. In 2018, Turpel-Lafond became a professor at the Peter A. Allard School of Law at the University of British Columbia (UBC). She was later named the inaugural director of the University of British Columbia's Indian Residential School History and Dialogue Centre.

Until 2022, Turpel-Lafond was celebrated as one of the most accomplished First Nations scholars in the history of Canada. However, her statement that she is a Treaty Indian was disputed in an October 2022 CBC News report that found major discrepancies between available documents and Turpel-Lafond's own statements about her ancestry. Following the CBC News report, Turpel-Lafond left the University of British Columbia; in addition, various honors and awards that she had received were revoked or relinquished.

Early life and education
Turpel-Lafond was born in February 1963 to William and Shirley Turpel. She has three older sisters. While Turpel-Lafond has stated that she was born and raised on the First Nation reserve of the Norway House Cree Nation in Manitoba, a 2022 report by CBC News stated that Turpel-Lafond was likely born and raised in Niagara Falls, Ontario. Turpel-Lafond has stated that there was alcoholism and violence in her family's home and that she experienced poverty and sexual abuse in her youth. From at least 1989, Turpel-Lafond has also used the name aki-kwe in certain contexts. She has said that an elder from Roseau River Anishinabe First Nation gave her that name in 1985.

Turpel-Lafond received a bachelor of arts degree from Carleton University in 1982. She holds a law degree from Osgoode Hall at York University and received a diploma in international law from the University of Cambridge in 1989. Turpel-Lafond was awarded a doctorate of law from Harvard Law School in 1997.

In a 2018 curriculum vitae, Turpel-Lafond stated that she had received a Master of Laws (LLM) degree from Cambridge. When asked by reporters, the University of Cambridge stated that the diploma is a substantially different credential from the LLM degree. Turpel-Lafond's 2018 curriculum vitae also indicated that she received her doctorate from Harvard in 1990; however, the 2022 CBC News report stated that she did not receive that degree until 1997.

Academic
Before a 2022 CBC News report cast doubt on her statements of Indian ancestry, Turpel-Lafond was celebrated as one of the most accomplished First Nations scholars in the history of Canada. She was a tenured law professor at Dalhousie University, Faculty of Law. Turpel-Lafond taught law at the University of Notre Dame, the University of Toronto, and other universities.

From 1989 to 1996, Turpel-Lafond was an assistant professor of law at the Schulich School of Law at Dalhousie University from 1989 to 1996. She spoke at other universities, and held the position of Aboriginal Scholar at the University of Saskatchewan.

Lawyer
Turpel-Lafond was a member of the bar in Nova Scotia and Saskatchewan. As a practising lawyer, Turpel-Lafond appeared before all levels of courts in Canada, including the Supreme Court of Canada. Turpel-Lafond worked on land claims with the Indian Law Resource Center in Washington, DC, and served as a legal and constitutional adviser to aboriginal leaders. During the negotiations over the Charlottetown Accord, a package of proposed amendments to the Constitution of Canada, Turpel-Lafond was a legal and constitutional advisor to Ovide Mercredi, National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations. Turpel-Lafond and Mercredi co-wrote a book, In the Rapids: Navigating the Future of First Nations.

As of February 2, 2024, Turpel-Lafond was listed as "non-practising" by the Law Society of British Columbia, the regulatory body for lawyers in that province.

Judge
In 1998, Turpel-Lafond was appointed as a Provincial Court judge in Saskatchewan. At the time, she was thought to be the first Treaty Indian to be appointed as a Provincial Court judge in Saskatchewan.

In 2017, Turpel-Lafond was said to be under consideration as a potential appointment to the Supreme Court of Canada.

Children's representative
After serving as a judge for eight years, Turpel-Lafond was appointed as British Columbia's first Representative for Children and Youth. In that capacity, she issued 93 reports and made 200 recommendations. In 2015, Turpel-Lafond called for the government to hire immediately at least 250 social workers for indigenous children, in order to provide needed services and protect vulnerable children. Turpel-Lafond left her position as Representative for Children and Youth in 2016.

In 2017, Turpel-Lafond filed a lawsuit against the province of British Columbia which claimed that the government broke a verbal agreement to provide her with 18 months worth of pension credits for each year of service. The statement of claim said the province had a history of animosity with Turpel-Lafond. It says a deputy minister told her in 2015 that "the government would treat her as a 'member of the opposition'".

University of British Columbia
In 2018, Turpel-Lafond joined the Peter A. Allard School of Law at the University of British Columbia (UBC) as professor and was subsequently named the inaugural director of the University of British Columbia's Indian Residential School History and Dialogue Centre. She resigned as director in June 2022, while continuing as a professor at the university.

On January 3, 2023 it was reported that as of December 16, 2022, Turpel-Lafond was no longer employed by the University of British Columbia. Turpel-Lafond's departure from UBC was marked by controversy, with her stating that she "retired" from her position, a statement which UBC declined to confirm. The Globe and Mail stated that Turpel-Lafond was removed from her position at the Peter A. Allard School of Law "because of the compelling evidence that she isn't who she says she is".

Representations about ancestry and upbringing
Turpel-Lafond has stated that she is "of Cree, Scottish and English heritage" (Cree via her father, and Scottish and English via her mother). She has stated that her father, William Turpel, "was Cree, spoke Cree and lived the values of a Cree person". Turpel-Lafond has asserted that her father was adopted by a British couple, William Nicholson Turpel and Eleanor Rhoda Turpel, but that the adoption was done informally.

Turpel-Lafond's statement that she is a Treaty Indian was disputed in an October 2022 CBC News report that found major discrepancies between available documents and Turpel-Lafond's own statements. CBC News reported that a birth certificate, a baptismal record, and a newspaper birth announcement all show that Turpel-Lafond's father, William Turpel, was the biological child of Canadian-British couple William Nicholson Turpel and Eleanor Rhoda Turpel. A cousin and an aunt of Turpel-Lafond's have both told reporters that they had never known William Turpel to have either been adopted or have been of Cree ancestry. Joe Keeper, a Cree man born at Norway House who was a schoolmate of William Turpel's, has told media that he knew William Turpel to be white and that he had never heard anyone say that William Turpel was a Cree Indian. Keeper further recalled that William Turpel's father was a white doctor in the community who had treated him for double pneumonia and dysentery during his youth.

Turpel-Lafond has also stated that she was born and raised on the First Nation reserve of the Norway House Cree Nation, in Manitoba. However, a 2022 report by CBC News states that Turpel-Lafond was likely born and raised in Niagara Falls, Ontario. The CBC's report is based on voter records for Turpel-Lafond's parents; a yearbook for a Niagara Falls high school containing an entry for Turpel-Lafond; the 1996 edition of Who's Who in Canada, which lists her place of birth as Niagara Falls; and her ex-husband's statement that he understood her to have been born and raised in Niagara Falls.

After the CBC News report was published, the University of British Columbia initially affirmed its support for Turpel-Lafond. A university spokesperson commented that Indigenous ancestry was not a prerequisite for her employment and that Turpel-Lafond's "identity is her own and the university is not going to comment on it". Turpel left the School of Law in 2023. According to The Globe and Mail, Turpel-Lafond was removed from her position at the School of Law due to evidence that her claims about her background were untrue.

Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, president of the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs, said he supported Turpel-Lafond and denounced accusations against her as a "disgusting witch hunt". Other Indigenous groups such as the Saskatoon Tribal Council along with individuals also offered support to Turpel-Lafond.

The Indigenous Women's Collective criticized the University's response to the report, saying that "university leaders have been too swift to publicly defend an individual claiming to hold Treaty Indian status and Indigeneity, when in fact there is no verifiable evidence to support that claim".

Aly Bear, vice chief of the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations, initially joined a statement of support for Turpel-Lafond; she later retracted her support. Cindy Blackstock, professor of social work at McGill University, and member of the Gitxsan First Nation, concluded that the birth certificate of Turpel-Lafond's father "... was pretty clear and convincing evidence suggesting that in this case there is no Indigenous identity per se".

In March 2023, Turpel-Lafond stated that it was liberating to be freed of her various honours because it allowed her to "focus on what really matters" in her life. She stated that she did not have any emotional attachment to "titles, honours or accolades". She also stated that "Trial by media is rampant, can be unbalanced and cause harm", and added: "This is precisely how wrongful convictions and injustice happens — take a position based on what someone else suggests while never delving deeper into matters to determine the truth."

Honorary degrees
During her career, Turpel-Lafond was awarded 11 honorary degrees from a variety of Canadian universities. However, following the controversy surrounding her ancestry claims, all of her honorary degrees were either rescinded by the relevant universities or voluntarily relinquished.

According to a publicly available curriculum vitae, Turpel-Lafond has asserted that she had received an honorary doctorate from First Nations University of Canada in 2001. However, CBC has reported that First Nations University of Canada has never granted an honorary degree in the history of the institution and "any mention of receiving an honorary degree or award from FNUniv is erroneous".

Order of Canada
In December 2021, Turpel-Lafond was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada. In September 2023, after doubt had been cast upon her assertions of Indigenous ancestry, she was removed from the Order at her request.

Other issues
During a 2013 speech at a Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences event, Turpel-Lafond stated that she had received the designation of Queen's Counsel (QC) from the Government of Saskatchewan. However, both the Ministry of Justice of Saskatchewan and the Law Society of Saskatchewan report that there is no record of Turpel-Lafond being appointed Queen's Counsel.

On March 9, 2023, the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association announced that it had stripped Turpel-Lafond of the Reg Robson Award it had previously given her in 2020. The BCCLA stated that information had come to their board's attention "that demonstrates, in our view, that Dr. Turpel-Lafond falsified her claims to Cree ancestry", and that she had made other academic and professional claims, "all of which, in our view, erode her professional integrity". In response, Turpel-Lafond stated that she was surprised that the BCCLA had stripped her of the award without first providing her with an opportunity to make any comments.

According to Turpel-Lafond, she co-authored a book with University of British Columbia professor Grant Charles in 2017 titled Indigenous Customary Adoption and Reconciliation. Charles says he has no recollection of writing such a book, and no copies of the volume have been found.

Reaction from federal funding agencies
Three of the federal agencies which fund academic research have announced that they are developing a policy to ensure that grants meant for Indigenous researchers do actually go to Indigenous people. The report cited the Turpel-Lafond case, amongst other similar cases, as being part of the reason for developing a clear policy.

Other honours and accolades

 * 2010: Perry Shawana Award from BC Aboriginal Child Care Society

Personal life
Turpel-Lafond lives in North Saanich, British Columbia. Her second husband is George Lafond, a member of the Muskeg Lake Cree Nation who is a former vice-chief and tribal chief of the Saskatoon Tribal Council. She has a son and three daughters, including one set of twins.

During her career, Turpel-Lafond was frequently described as a member of the Muskeg Lake Cree Nation. On 12 October 2022, Chief Kelly Wolfe of the Muskeg Lake Cree Nation issued a public statement confirming that "Mary-Ellen [Turpel-Lafond] is a member of the Muskeg Lake Cree Nation and has been for nearly 30 years."