After allegedly impersonating Inuit people to receive benefits from indigenous organizations, three women in Canada have been charged with crimes. Two 25-year-old sisters are accused of engaging in fraud by pretending to be adopted Inuit children.
Two counts of fraud are being brought against each of the sisters and their 59-year-old mother. A group of Inuit referred to the purported trick as “flabbergasting.” On October 30, the defendants must appear in court in Iqaluit. According to a statement from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), the sisters, Amira and Nadya Gill, and their mother, Karima Manji, defrauded two regional organizations between October 2016 and September 2022 by obtaining grants and scholarships that are only available to Inuit beneficiaries.
Members of Canada’s Inuit people in the sparsely populated northern region are eligible to receive benefits, including grants and scholarships, as part of a 1993 indigenous land claim settlement known as the Nunavut Agreement. Nunavut Tunngavik Inc., or NTI, the group that represents Inuits in the region, is in charge of overseeing the registration of indigenous status. In a statement released in March, NTI stated that it had become aware of probable fraudulent enrollment of the Gill sisters after Ms. Manji claimed that they were adopted children and named an Inuk woman as their birth mother. In the history of the organization’s enrollment program, they said that this instance was a “first of its kind.”
Following an investigation, the three, who are residents of the province of Ontario, were removed from the NTI’s list of recipients, and the case was turned over to the RCMP. Kitty Noah, the woman identified by the Gills as the twins’ birth mother, declared that she was not their parent before passing away in July. The Gill sisters, both Queen’s University graduates from Ontario, started an online store selling face masks in 2021 that featured artwork created by indigenous artists. The Gill sisters and their mother should “at a minimum” repay the money they received from Inuit groups, according to NTI President Aluki Kotierk in an interview with the Canadian network CBC. He continued by saying that the NTI would continue to train enrollment committees in the future.
The alleged fraud, in Mr. Kotierk’s words, is “another form of colonization” and part of a larger pattern of non-indigenous Canadians claiming ancestry. “You’ve wanted to take away our ability to communicate,” he said. “You’ve wanted to rob us of our culture. Now, you’re attempting to claim our identity? It simply astounds me.” The NTI described the incident as “isolated” in a statement but added that it was tightening admission standards and would soon require applicants to submit a copy of their long-form birth certificate. In addition to the funds granted by the two local organizations, the Kakivak Association and the Qikiqtani Inuit Association, claiming indigenous status allowed the twins to receive scholarships from the Royal Bank of Canada, Indspire, a Canadian indigenous charity, and the power company Hydro One.
Before 2021, scholarship applicants could self-identify as indigenous, according to a Royal Bank of Canada spokeswoman, but the guidelines have since changed. Indspire and Hydro One have been contacted by the BBC for comments. Some Canadians have referred to people who fraudulently claim to have indigenous origins as “pretendians.” However, Jean Teillet, a representative of the Métis indigenous group, expressed to Global News that the term used minimizes the seriousness of the problem because it “appears less serious.” “I would rather label it as fraud because fraud is defined as a deliberate act of deception to acquire a tangible benefit, which accurately describes the situation at hand,” Teillet explained. The three women facing charges were unavailable for immediate comment.
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