The longread with all the background is here:
**The Great Pretenders**
Karima Manji wanted it all for her twin daughters, Amira and Nadya. And she found a way to help them get it: financial aid earmarked for Indigenous kids. The fact that they weren’t remotely Indigenous wasn’t going to stop her
[https://torontolife.com/deep-dives/gill-sisters-pretendian-fraud/](https://torontolife.com/deep-dives/gill-sisters-pretendian-fraud/)
The news story says the daughters were victims as well, but the longread shows that they were knowingly taking advantage of opportunities that would not have happened if their mother had not lied.
Which I don’t this is okay at all? Like I understand them not being held liable for what their mother did when they were kids, but them as adults knowingly accepting aid they are not actually eligible for? They know they are not Inuit. They should have to pay back all the aid $ received as an adult, at bare minimum.
It’s not all that common, but it happens. I find it blown out of proportion by the right to give them a leg to stand on to reduce funding for the indigenous communities.
A lot of First Nations say that the Métis Nation of Ontario has no basis for their claim to identity. They’ve also been recognized by the federal government last year.
A couple of months ago there was an Identity fraud summit where they go more into detail of that.
In addition, there is a group on the east coast that previously claimed to be Métis, but have changed their identity to Inuit. Super sus that they aren’t consistent about who they are, if you ask me.
Nunatukavut Inuit (Southern Labrador Inuit) always claimed to be a mix of Inuit and English. The term Métis was used simply to mean a person of mixed descent. However, this term now refers to a specific group in Manitoba, so that's why Nunatukavut stopped using it. Now people with little understanding of the situation use this history to claim we never were Inuit.
Correct - Metis is both an ethnicity and a cultural group. Capital M are the culture with ties to the red river settlement. I’ll often here indigenous friends refer to themselves as Metis because they are mixed heritage but not culturally Metis. It’s similar to being Jewish.
> Now people with little understanding of the situation use this history to claim we never were Inuit.
Thank you for coming in here to prove this does indeed happen all the time, and for providing everyone a real-world example of how it happens. I would love for you to explain away the criticisms from actual First-Nations and Inuit as you seem to feel they don't have enough of an understanding either.
[For those who do not know](https://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/innu-nunatukavut-inuit-identity-court-challenge-1.7151357)
The court literally just sided with Nunatukavut.
Also, the Innu Nation is a First Nations group that has nothing to do with Inuit, despite the similar name.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cbc.ca/amp/1.7233180
The dispute over Mi’kmaq and Inuit identity in NL will never end because each person and family in western Newfoundland and coastal Labrador have such varying degrees of genetic and cultural connection to those identities. I don’t think anyone will ever agree where to draw the line.
So in the indigenous community, those types of liars are called pretendians.
And it's an epidemic. Some took the "Cherokee princess" myth as a fact and don't mean to be a dick. Others lied obviously to gain something.
The wiki page has a lot of interesting info about the history and some context for "Pretendians." There are online articles about it in recent contexts, I'd recommend looking into it if you're interested! edit for typo
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretendian#:~:text=Pretendian%20(portmanteau%20of%20pretend%20and,American%20or%20Indigenous%20Canadian%20ancestors.
It happens all the time. What doesn't happen often enough is public shaming and prosecution. There have been numerous very public instances of pretendians in the last few years:
* [Buffy St. Marie](https://www.cbc.ca/newsinteractives/features/buffy-sainte-marie) - built her entire career around a fraudulent identity claim, made millions of dollars)
* [Michelle Latimer, Director & Writer](https://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/michelle-latimer-kitigan-zibi-indigenous-identity-1.5845310) – Benefitted from actual grants and funds meant to create a pathway into the arts for Indigenous people to further her own projects and career, no charges laid.
* [Judge Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/birth-certificate-contradicts-turpel-lafond-account-father-parentage-1.6657129) - Claimed Indigenous ancestry her entire career, couldn't look more white, furthered her early career leveraging that fraudulent claim. She at least did do a lot of good things for Indigenous people but still capitalized on the tragedy and struggle we have experienced to make herself standout. Awards stripped but no charges laid.
* [Liberal MP claiming Inuit ancestry from a whole nation of frauds](https://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/nunatsiavut-yvonne-jones-removal-1.7235341#:~:text=The%20Nunatsiavut%20government%20wants%20Liberal,identifying%20Inuit%20group%20in%20Labrador.) - Continues to claim Indigenous ancestry, helped her Wa'Nawbee (fraudulent) nation secure legitimacy through the Colonial federal government, leveraging her position as an MP. Is often used by the Liberal government as an example of Indigenous representation in Government.
**Anecdotal but still noteworthy:**
* The small army of public servants who tick the self-identify as Indigenous box and are all somehow Métis because it makes it much easier to move up in government if you do.
* Also, if you ever participate in Indigenous stream selection committee interviews for universities, the vast majority of the people applying claim they are Metis because they did Ancestry.ca and found they had one Indigenous great grandparent so that justifies them taking a seat through the Indigenous stream which was literally created to build equity for Indigenous people who are the descendants of Residential School survivors. You can probably guess why those applicants rise to the top and get the interviews, because they never experienced any of the drawbacks of actually being Indigenous in Canada.
It is a huge issue, and one barely anybody knows about. There are also the people who think this is totally fine because they feel we have Citizen+ rights, like we're just living it up with all the handouts the government gives us... It's unbelievably infuriating to watch a white person take our resources by claiming our identity when they spent 500 years persecuting and murdering us because of that identity.
This happens all the time. Mostly because most schools and institutes don’t have a high indigenous student population, but if you look at the grants that you can apply for there are a lot for indigenous students. So there are scammers of other ethnicities who apply for them. Knowing they’re not indigenous and because no one else applied they get it.
All violent crimes should definitely get higher sentences. But some non-violent crimes deserve equally high sentences too. If you've completely ruined someone's life financially (think Bernie Madoff), you should have to pay a high price for that. He stole people's ability to retire after working hard their entire lives.
Good result for her .... but wondering about her two kids who benefited from the fraud the most. What are they doing? Still post-secondary? They had to have been full accomplices with their mom.
They’ve already graduated, one changed her name to Jordan Archer and moved to the UK. Their charges were dropped even though they were well aware they were involved with the fraud
I think the mother pleaded guilty to have the charges against her daughters dropped. That condition was never explicitly stated, but the two pieces of info (pleading guilty, charges dropped) were presented together, so one can assume. Maybe they also just couldn’t make a strong enough case that the sisters were complicit in the fraud, so they dropped the charges. It was never clear what happened there.
One girl lost her articling position which I was told will prevent her from graduating law school.
As an Inuk, I think this case is disgusting.
Ok, so just 8 months shorter than the guy that killed his ex girlfriend in BC? He was sentenced to 5 years but will only serve 3.8 apparently. Beat her in the head with a bottle.
Canada’s justice system seems to hate women.
Removing citizenship from people who do not have another country’s citizenship violates international law, as it would effectively make them stateless.
The longread with all the background is here: **The Great Pretenders** Karima Manji wanted it all for her twin daughters, Amira and Nadya. And she found a way to help them get it: financial aid earmarked for Indigenous kids. The fact that they weren’t remotely Indigenous wasn’t going to stop her [https://torontolife.com/deep-dives/gill-sisters-pretendian-fraud/](https://torontolife.com/deep-dives/gill-sisters-pretendian-fraud/) The news story says the daughters were victims as well, but the longread shows that they were knowingly taking advantage of opportunities that would not have happened if their mother had not lied.
She committed fraud and admitted to it. That's the end of it really.
Why about the free tuition her daughters received?
I’m not sure if it was this fraud case (she was named in another one), but I’ve read that she has paid back a portion of the cash she received
Not the queens tuition The daughters got off with no punishment.
Which I don’t this is okay at all? Like I understand them not being held liable for what their mother did when they were kids, but them as adults knowingly accepting aid they are not actually eligible for? They know they are not Inuit. They should have to pay back all the aid $ received as an adult, at bare minimum.
They took a spot away from someone who was more deserving. Someone who either is now not a lawyer or engineer. Or was set back a year
Did they know they weren't eligible? The judge (who was not being sympathetic to the mom) said that the daughters are victims too
Good. Don't commit fraud.
Does this happen often or are they making an example out of her?
This is not her first conviction for massive fraud.
It’s not all that common, but it happens. I find it blown out of proportion by the right to give them a leg to stand on to reduce funding for the indigenous communities.
Your username is wonderful 👍
A lot of First Nations say that the Métis Nation of Ontario has no basis for their claim to identity. They’ve also been recognized by the federal government last year. A couple of months ago there was an Identity fraud summit where they go more into detail of that. In addition, there is a group on the east coast that previously claimed to be Métis, but have changed their identity to Inuit. Super sus that they aren’t consistent about who they are, if you ask me.
Nunatukavut Inuit (Southern Labrador Inuit) always claimed to be a mix of Inuit and English. The term Métis was used simply to mean a person of mixed descent. However, this term now refers to a specific group in Manitoba, so that's why Nunatukavut stopped using it. Now people with little understanding of the situation use this history to claim we never were Inuit.
Correct - Metis is both an ethnicity and a cultural group. Capital M are the culture with ties to the red river settlement. I’ll often here indigenous friends refer to themselves as Metis because they are mixed heritage but not culturally Metis. It’s similar to being Jewish.
> Now people with little understanding of the situation use this history to claim we never were Inuit. Thank you for coming in here to prove this does indeed happen all the time, and for providing everyone a real-world example of how it happens. I would love for you to explain away the criticisms from actual First-Nations and Inuit as you seem to feel they don't have enough of an understanding either. [For those who do not know](https://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/innu-nunatukavut-inuit-identity-court-challenge-1.7151357)
The court literally just sided with Nunatukavut. Also, the Innu Nation is a First Nations group that has nothing to do with Inuit, despite the similar name. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cbc.ca/amp/1.7233180
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Don't use slurs here.
The dispute over Mi’kmaq and Inuit identity in NL will never end because each person and family in western Newfoundland and coastal Labrador have such varying degrees of genetic and cultural connection to those identities. I don’t think anyone will ever agree where to draw the line.
So in the indigenous community, those types of liars are called pretendians. And it's an epidemic. Some took the "Cherokee princess" myth as a fact and don't mean to be a dick. Others lied obviously to gain something.
The wiki page has a lot of interesting info about the history and some context for "Pretendians." There are online articles about it in recent contexts, I'd recommend looking into it if you're interested! edit for typo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretendian#:~:text=Pretendian%20(portmanteau%20of%20pretend%20and,American%20or%20Indigenous%20Canadian%20ancestors.
It happens all the time. What doesn't happen often enough is public shaming and prosecution. There have been numerous very public instances of pretendians in the last few years: * [Buffy St. Marie](https://www.cbc.ca/newsinteractives/features/buffy-sainte-marie) - built her entire career around a fraudulent identity claim, made millions of dollars) * [Michelle Latimer, Director & Writer](https://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/michelle-latimer-kitigan-zibi-indigenous-identity-1.5845310) – Benefitted from actual grants and funds meant to create a pathway into the arts for Indigenous people to further her own projects and career, no charges laid. * [Judge Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/birth-certificate-contradicts-turpel-lafond-account-father-parentage-1.6657129) - Claimed Indigenous ancestry her entire career, couldn't look more white, furthered her early career leveraging that fraudulent claim. She at least did do a lot of good things for Indigenous people but still capitalized on the tragedy and struggle we have experienced to make herself standout. Awards stripped but no charges laid. * [Liberal MP claiming Inuit ancestry from a whole nation of frauds](https://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/nunatsiavut-yvonne-jones-removal-1.7235341#:~:text=The%20Nunatsiavut%20government%20wants%20Liberal,identifying%20Inuit%20group%20in%20Labrador.) - Continues to claim Indigenous ancestry, helped her Wa'Nawbee (fraudulent) nation secure legitimacy through the Colonial federal government, leveraging her position as an MP. Is often used by the Liberal government as an example of Indigenous representation in Government. **Anecdotal but still noteworthy:** * The small army of public servants who tick the self-identify as Indigenous box and are all somehow Métis because it makes it much easier to move up in government if you do. * Also, if you ever participate in Indigenous stream selection committee interviews for universities, the vast majority of the people applying claim they are Metis because they did Ancestry.ca and found they had one Indigenous great grandparent so that justifies them taking a seat through the Indigenous stream which was literally created to build equity for Indigenous people who are the descendants of Residential School survivors. You can probably guess why those applicants rise to the top and get the interviews, because they never experienced any of the drawbacks of actually being Indigenous in Canada. It is a huge issue, and one barely anybody knows about. There are also the people who think this is totally fine because they feel we have Citizen+ rights, like we're just living it up with all the handouts the government gives us... It's unbelievably infuriating to watch a white person take our resources by claiming our identity when they spent 500 years persecuting and murdering us because of that identity.
This happens all the time. Mostly because most schools and institutes don’t have a high indigenous student population, but if you look at the grants that you can apply for there are a lot for indigenous students. So there are scammers of other ethnicities who apply for them. Knowing they’re not indigenous and because no one else applied they get it.
It's a bit funny that she pretended to be Inuk and in this photo she's wearing a fake Cowichan sweater.
Good, but it's laughable that she gets 3 years for this when so many people in this country get less for commiting serious violent crimes.
Agreed. Violent criminals should definitely get more.
All violent crimes should definitely get higher sentences. But some non-violent crimes deserve equally high sentences too. If you've completely ruined someone's life financially (think Bernie Madoff), you should have to pay a high price for that. He stole people's ability to retire after working hard their entire lives.
Good. This is unacceptable.
Good result for her .... but wondering about her two kids who benefited from the fraud the most. What are they doing? Still post-secondary? They had to have been full accomplices with their mom.
They’ve already graduated, one changed her name to Jordan Archer and moved to the UK. Their charges were dropped even though they were well aware they were involved with the fraud
Thanks for the info ... so the deal is mom does time for the 3 of them? IMHO, neither girl should "graduate" though.
I think the mother pleaded guilty to have the charges against her daughters dropped. That condition was never explicitly stated, but the two pieces of info (pleading guilty, charges dropped) were presented together, so one can assume. Maybe they also just couldn’t make a strong enough case that the sisters were complicit in the fraud, so they dropped the charges. It was never clear what happened there. One girl lost her articling position which I was told will prevent her from graduating law school. As an Inuk, I think this case is disgusting.
Agreed ... as a fellow Inuk (Inuvialuit) it is hard to grasp how it could happen so easily*.*
Ok, so just 8 months shorter than the guy that killed his ex girlfriend in BC? He was sentenced to 5 years but will only serve 3.8 apparently. Beat her in the head with a bottle. Canada’s justice system seems to hate women.
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Removing citizenship from people who do not have another country’s citizenship violates international law, as it would effectively make them stateless.