University president on paid leave after Indigenous identity claim

Memorial University President Vianne Timmons decided to go on voluntary paid leave after she became engulfed in a scandal surrounding her claimed Indigenous heritage…

She claims she joined the Bras d’Or Mi’kmaq First Nation tribe, a tribe which is not recognized by Native Americans or Canada’s federal government, for a brief time around 2009 when her brother submitted their genealogy…

However, public documents, including a CV as recent as 2016, show she claimed membership in the tribe over a longer period of time and CBC News found references as late as 2018.