The Buffy Effect

For decades, the singer, poet, teacher, tech whiz and activist has shaped the way we think about music, Indigenous rights and the Internet. Her greatest gift? Believing we can all do better.

- Alicia Elliott

Shortly before sunset on the last day of June, Buffy Sainte - Marie strides onto the stage at the foot of Toronto’s city hall. Even at 76, the singer-songwriter comes across as the consummate rock star: tight black pants, studded jacket, a smile so bright it could power the curved towers looming in the background. Grinning at the crowd and its applause, Sainte-Marie is confident and cool, exuding an effortlessness that cannot be learned—hers has been earned through decades of hard work and diligence.

This performance is one part of Toronto’s contribution to Canada 150, a marathon of a party that hasn’t met with unanimity. Since January, and before, Indigenous people have voiced opposition to the festivities, contending that they erase the history of the land prior to 1867 and that Canada hasn’t given First Nations much reason to celebrate in the years since Confederation. Sainte-Marie, an Indigenous icon, has admitted she’s “of two minds” about the event in which she’s participating.

As she stands here, water protectors sit in a teepee on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, protesting Canada’s treatment of Indigenous peoples. Michèle Moreau, the executive director of the troubled National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, has just resigned from her post. The York Regional Police have taken over investigating the deaths of Tammy Keeash and Josiah Begg—Indigenous teens whose bodies were found in northern Ontario waterways— because an independent probe is investigating the Thunder Bay Police Service for “systemic racism.” Nerves are, to say the least, taut.