Premier Heather Stefanson said that Klein is one of her caucus’s two Indigenous members
The website for the Manitoba government still says that Environment Minister Kevin Klein is Métis, even though the president of the Manitoba Métis Federation, a well-known Métis lawyer, and Klein’s own brother all say that this is not true.
A spokesperson for Premier Heather Stefanson wrote in January that Mr. Klein is considered Indigenous because he has said in public that he is a Canadian Métis.
Klein says that he is a member of the Painted Feather Woodland Métis tribe. The Manitoba Métis Federation and the Métis Nation of Ontario do not recognize the group. It is a business that makes money and is based out of a single-family home near Bancroft, Ontario, which is about 250 km northeast of Toronto.
Klein says that he claims to be Métis because of his Indigenous mother, who died before he was born.
“I don’t self-identify, I don’t use it, and I don’t talk about it every time I speak. “It has to do with my mother and my family,” Klein said in an interview last fall when he was running for mayor.
When CBC News talked to Klein’s brother, Christopher Rout, he said that he, his brother, and their mother are not Métis.
“In school, I learned about the Métis. I thought I would have been taught something and told something, but neither happened. “No, we’re not Métis,” Rout told CBC News in an interview. He said that if he could, he would try to become a Métis citizen.
Klein’s younger brother is named Rout. Their parents are the same, but their last names are different. The marriage certificate shows that Klein changed his name from Harold Kevin Rout Jr. to Kevin Elvis Klein before his second marriage in 1994.
David Chartrand, the president of the Manitoba Métis Federation, told CBC that Klein’s claim to be Métis is not true.
“Kevin Klein does not meet any of our requirements. We don’t recognize the Painted Feather Woodlands Métis or any other group that claims to be Métis but doesn’t fit our definition. This is the same as all the other times when people or groups say they are Métis when they really have a mixed background, Chartrand told CBC News in an email.
CBC News did research on Klein’s mother’s family tree, some of which went back five generations. They did not find any evidence that Klein’s mother has a Métis or other Indigenous ancestor.
Most of Klein’s mother’s ancestors came to Canada from England or Ireland, according to the census and other historical records.
His great-grandfather, who was born in 1889 and came from Jersey, one of the British Islands, was the last person he knew who moved to Canada. Two of his great-grandmother’s grandparents were born in England, and the other two were born in Ireland.
Klein’s great-grandmother, who was born in 1875 and whose death certificate said she was English, was the only ancestor whose roots could not be found in another country. In the 1861 census, all four of her grandparents, three of whom were born in the U.S. and one in Canada, said they were not “Indian.”
In an interview in January, Premier Stefanson said that Klein is one of two Indigenous MLAs in the Progressive Conservative caucus. She also talked about how important it was for her party to have Indigenous people in it so that it better reflected the province’s population.
“We need to get more Indigenous candidates, and we’re working on that,” Stefanson said. “We need more diversity in how we choose candidates.”
When told that there was no proof of Klein’s Métis ancestry and that Chartrand and Klein’s brother had said things, a spokesperson for Stefanson wouldn’t say if the premier still thought Klein was a member of the Indigenous PC caucus.
“Because we have worked hard to become the most diverse party in Manitoba, we are proud to have the first Muslim minister of the Crown, the first Black minister, and the first woman premier in our caucus. “Minister Klein has made it clear that he is on a personal journey and that he is not using his ancestry to get ahead in politics,” the spokesperson wrote.
The spokesperson said that the premier is happy with how PC Party candidates are vetted, but he questioned whether New Democrats are happy with how their candidates are vetted after it came out in 2017 that NDP Leader Wab Kinew had been convicted of crimes and had domestic violence charges against him dropped from about 20 years ago.
Jean Teillet, a Métis lawyer and Louis Riel’s great-grandniece, says that universities, governments, and other organizations are currently trying to hire Indigenous people. This could help a candidate who says they are Indigenous in an interview.
Teillet said that it helps the PC party as well.
“They stand up and say, ‘We have Indigenous people in our party, so you can see we’re not against Indigenous people. Look, they speak for their people.'”
‘Métis’ disappear
This past year, Klein ran two campaigns in Winnipeg, which according to Statistics Canada data from 2021 has the most Indigenous people living there than any other city in Canada.
After failing to become mayor, he won the Kirkfield Park provincial byelection.
Klein called himself a “proud Métis Canadian” on his X account, which used to be called Twitter, and on his website at different times during the campaigns.
Over the past few months, the word “Métis” has been taken out of Klein’s personal accounts, first from his X biography and then from his personal website, but the government record hasn’t changed.
When Klein was named to cabinet at the end of January, the government sent out a news release with background information. It said, “Klein is a proud Métis Canadian and continues to explore, working with Elders in Manitoba to research his connections to the Indigenous community.” That exact phrase is also in his bio on the government website and on the Progressive Conservative Party website.
When CBC News asked Klein for an interview to talk about his biography in the province’s news release, his press secretary said he is not available and that his “bio seems to explain itself.”
When CBC News asked why the word “Métis” was taken off of Klein’s personal website, Klein’s press secretary wrote, “As Minister Klein has said before, ‘This is a private and personal journey.'”
Since then, his personal website has changed again. It now says, “Connecting with my Indigenous heritage helps put life into perspective,” and at the top it says, “Re-elect Kevin Klein.”
Klein, who is 58 years old, has talked to the media in the past about his membership card from the Painted Feather Woodland Métis, a group that is not recognized by the Manitoba Métis Federation or the Métis Nation of Ontario.
The Government of Canada says that only the Métis Nation of Alberta, the Manitoba Métis Federation, the Métis Nation of Saskatchewan, the Métis Nation of British Columbia, and the Métis Nation of Ontario are allowed to decide who is a Métis with rights under the Constitution.
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Teillet won a case before the Supreme Court of Canada in 2003. The court said that a person can be considered Métis and have rights under Section 35 of the Constitution if they pass a test called the Powley test. Section 35 recognizes the “aboriginal and treaty rights of the Aboriginal people of Canada,” but it doesn’t say what those rights are.
Part of the Powley test tells you what you need to do to be eligible: you must say you are Métis, be accepted as a member of a modern Métis community, and have ties to a historic Métis community.
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Painted Feather Woodland Métis doesn’t agree with what it calls “overly restrictive and unfair” definitions of who is Métis. Instead, it says its definition is “simple: anyone with an aboriginal ancestor,” according to the company’s website, which also lists fees for membership for adults ranging from $57 to $320, plus provincial sales tax.
In the past, Painted Feather turned down an interview request and sent CBC News to its website to find out more.
Klein has said that he didn’t say he was Métis for political reasons, and he got his membership card before he got into politics.
Indigenous ancestry is a complicated topic, so CBC News did its research with the help of Indigenous experts and journalists.
As an elected minister in the Manitoba government, Klein’s claims will be looked at by journalists in the same way they look at the claims of other high-ranking elected officials.
Klein’s lawyer says the matter is “private.
Since becoming a cabinet minister, Klein has turned down CBC News’s request to talk to them about new information they have about his claim to be Métis.
Klein’s lawyer, Sacha Paul of Thompson Dorfman Sweatman, sent a letter to CBC News in April asking them to stop asking about Klein’s background and to stop talking to his family about it.
Paul wrote, “Mr. Klein has told me that the issue of his Indigenous heritage is a personal one and that his campaign materials do not emphasize his connection to his Indigenous ancestry.”
Red flag
Jean Teillet said, “Once we can all say we’re Indigenous for any reason, there won’t be any Indigenous people left, because we’ll all be Indigenous.”
She says it’s bad because it’s another step toward getting rid of Indigenous people. She calls this “reverse assimilation.”
Teillet was hired by the University of Saskatchewan as an independent investigator to figure out how to stop false claims of Indigenous ancestry. This was done after professor Carrie Bourassa was put on leave and then resigned after a CBC investigation found no proof that she was Indigenous.
The Painted Feather Woodland Métis is one of many groups that have “sprung up” since 2002. Teillet said that these groups “have a very, very loose definition of what they call Métis, which is basically anyone who has even a tiny bit of Indigenous ancestry.”
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Teillet’s report for the University of Saskatchewan, called “Indigenous Identity Fraud,” found similarities between different cases of false claims of Indigeneity, which she calls “red flags.”
Klein told What’s Up Winnipeg reporter Dorothy Dobbie during his run for mayor that he took an Indigenous course at the University of Alberta “to learn more about his Métis and Cree background.”
“Some Native American groups in the middle of the country had a lot of people with blonde hair and blue eyes. His family says that you can see his roots in his cheekbones, but Kevin says he could never grow a real beard!” wrote Dobbie, a former Progressive Conservative MP who wrote the profile of Klein before the civic election.
Teillet wrote in her report for the University of Saskatchewan that the changing identities of Indigenous people should be a red flag.
“They changed their stories when people didn’t believe them. One great example is Joseph Boyden. Teillet said in an interview, “I think he changed his name about 10 times over the years.”
An investigation by APTN found no proof that Boyden, who has written about Indigenous people and culture in his books, has any Indigenous ancestors.
Teillet said, “If [Klein] follows the pattern that everyone else has followed, he’ll keep changing his stories over and over again.”
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Teillet said that when people who say they are Indigenous but can’t prove it speak for Indigenous people, Indigenous people aren’t heard.
“Every time someone like that speaks on behalf of Indigenous people, they take the microphone away from real Indigenous people,” she said.
“It’s about my mom and family,” I said
Klein told CBC News last year, when he was running for mayor, that his claim to Métis heritage was a way for him to connect with his late mother, Joanne Winacott.
In 1991, when she was 45 years old, her second husband killed her in her Oshawa home.
Klein was 26 years old.
“I’m not trying to claim any rights or think that this will help me in any way. In an interview in September, Klein said, “It’s about my mom and my family.”
Klein has spoken out about the murder of his mother. He still has a section of his personal website, which he used to run for office, that is about his mother.
On April 5, the day of his mother’s birthday, he talked about her death and domestic violence in the legislature.
When Klein was a city councillor for Charleswood-Tuxedo-Westwood, he talked about the death of his mother during a debate about the budget for the Winnipeg Police Service:
“I want to talk about something that no one else in the council can talk about. “My Native mother was killed,” Klein said at a meeting of the Winnipeg city council in December 2021.
On Red Dress Day, May 5, 2022, the National Day of Awareness for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, Klein posted a video to Instagram saying, “My mother was killed by her partner, and she was Indigenous,” in front of the red dresses that were on display at Winnipeg City Hall for the event.
Klein’s lawyer said in a letter from April that the media, including CBC, can ask about Klein’s record and what he has done for his constituents, but not about “personal matters.”
Paul wrote, “From our client’s point of view, his heritage is one of the few ties he has to his late mother, who was taken from him when he was a child.”
In a second email sent in the middle of July, Paul said that Klein is “a firm believer in the freedom of the press and responsible journalism.”
“However, it is not responsible journalism to keep bringing up a personal matter that has to do with the sad death of my client’s mother,” Paul wrote.
The lawyer wanted to know for sure that CBC News “will not run this story now or in the future.”
Teillet’s report also says that it’s a red flag when people talk about Indigenous trauma in public places more than once.
“Someone killed his mother. Teillet said in an interview, “That’s real trauma, but it has nothing to do with Indigenous identity.” “It is a sad story about how his mother was killed.”
Teillet doesn’t understand why Klein ties his claim to Métis heritage to his mother’s death.
“Is he saying, ‘Oh, she was murdered, you know, she’s part of that murdered and missing Indigenous women and girls story,’ and that if you can show trauma in your life, that’s a good reason to identify as Indigenous?'”
In her report for the University of Saskatchewan, Teillet finds a pattern in the cases she looked at.
“Indigenous identity thieves often rely heavily on stereotypes about being disconnected from their culture and heritage, intergenerational trauma, family violence, addictions, racism, and poverty. By doing this, the scammers are “marketing trauma” by using “stolen trauma and stolen valour.” She used research done by Sherry Farrell Racette in her report.
Rout says he doesn’t like how Klein talks about the death of their mother in public.
Klein started his Instagram account right before he ran for city council in 2018. It has at least 15 posts about the murder of his mother, as well as ads for his campaigns for city councillor, mayor, and MLA in 2022.
He also talks about his mother’s murder on his personal site, which he also uses for campaign purposes.
Rout said he dislikes the way Klein uses his mother’s memory in his public posts.
“To me, a son’s job is to defend their mom, defend their mom’s story, not exploit it for any gain. So I will stand and defend it all day long,” Rout, a paramedic with Alberta Health Services, said in an interview with CBC News.
Indigenous identity requires connectio
Klein completed the University of Alberta’s Indigenous Canada course in 2020 and posted the certificate on his website. The free online instruction program covers the histories and current perspectives of Indigenous Peoples in Canada.
Early in the course, University of Alberta professor Kim TallBear says having an Indigenous relative does not make you Indigenous.
“You don’t just have the right as an individual to go claim to be a member of a community that does not know you, within which you have not been socialized and that does not claim you,” TallBear said in a module of the course.
Klein is adamant that his Métis heritage is a private and personal journey, but Teillet says that’s not how it works.
“This idea that it’s a personal journey and no one can question it … it’s BS, right? We shouldn’t give it credit. And so if he’s on a personal journey for six to eight years, trying to find an Indigenous identity somewhere, then personally, I think he should shut up about it until he figures it out,” Teillet said.