Morris 'Onagottay' Blanchard – celebrated artist says he's Indigenous & a Sixties Scoop survivor

According to Blanchard's family and members of eleven First Nations and other close acquaintances, Morris 'Onagottay' Blanchard is not who he says he is. Blanchard has been making these claims for decades about being Indigenous and a Sixties Scoop survivor. He is a celebrated artist in the Kingston area and once hailed by Queen's University, Blanchard is known for paintings on Indigenous themes.

Blanchard, who goes by Onagottay and claims to be Anishinaabe, is featured throughout Kingston and has been published in a children's coloring book currently on the shelves of major retailers such as Chapters Indigo. He's held workshops at Queen's in the past, taught art classes, and spoke frequently at a children's language nest. Blanchard has won multiple awards and grants from public and private institutions, including the City of Kingston and Queen's University.

According to CBC, those who know Blanchard, including his ex-wife and brother, he is not who he claims to be.

"My family is white," said one of the artist's brothers, Allen Blanchard, who describes his family's ancestry as primarily Norwegian, English, with some French.

"From what I understand, my mom told me that we did have a little bit of Indigenous in us. She said it was 'Flatfoot.' ... I'm not sure what that means."

CBC reported, 'Morris Blanchard declined to comment for this story.'

He is the only family member to identify as Indigenous, according to his brother.

Blanchard's Indigenous background follow similar scrutiny over a handful of other prominent individuals in the Kingston area with ties to Queen's. CBC News reported they 'began investigating Blanchard after nearly 100 academics signed an open letter in June calling on the university to examine the potential harm of misrepresentation among faculty, staff and associates.'

To complete his false identity, Blanchard claims he was 'raised in the bush', and is a survivor of the Sixties Scoop having never learned to read or write in English, he claims he is a medicine man, and a 'member of the Midewiwin Lodge where he is taught from the elders the sacred healing methods, including traditional medicines and their uses.'

In various articles and biographies, Blanchard has been described as Ojibway, Métis, Blackfoot, Navajo, French and Norwegian at different times.

CBC stated, "As for the claim his brother is a Sixties Scoop survivor, Allen Blanchard says, "No way."

Blanchard's brother, Allen Blanchard said the family is in fact from Atikokan, a small town in rural northwestern Ontario. The children did spend one year in foster care, Allen said Morris Blanchard returned to live with their parents until at least his late teens.

Morris learned about traditional living and culture comes from spending time with members of Seine River First Nation. His ex-wife Alice Cupp says she was married to the artist for nearly a decade in the 1980s. Cupp, who is a member of Seine River First Nation.

She told CBC, "The medicines and traditional values that he's using, he learned it from the people over here in Fort Frances, especially from my grandpa and my uncle."

CBC News also reached out to officials that represent 11 First Nations in and around the Lake of the Woods area where Blanchard claims to be from. Each one confirmed Blanchard was not an enrolled member.

CBC reported, 'Blanchard is one of six people named in an anonymous report that circulated online earlier this year alleging individuals connected to Queen's were misrepresenting themselves as Indigenous.'

Geraldine King, an Anishinaabe academic described Blanchard's actions as "a really sick form of settler colonialism."

"We've already had everything taken from us and then here's this trauma that is connected to land and displacement ... all that's left is this trauma and these horror stories," she said.

Former Deputy Grand Chief of Nishnawbe Aski Nation, Anna Betty Achneepineskum, an advocate for residential school and Sixties Scoop survivors in Thunder Bay, Ont., says Blanchard's claims of Indigenous identity are "very upsetting" and "not right."

"It's not the truth and that is very dishonoring to the legacy of the survivors," said Achneepineskum.

Celeste Pedri-Spade, an Anishinaabe associate professor at Queen's University and a member of Lac des Mille Lacs First Nation, said Blanchard is violating the trust of the next generation of Indigenous people.

"As an elder in a language program that's for children ... there's this claim here that is making me go like, well, what kind of environment did I bring my child and my children into?" Spade said.

No one from the language program responded to CBC's requests for an interview or comment.

The City of Kingston, which bestowed Blanchard with the Mayor's Arts Award in 2018, said it is "watching and learning" during the public discussion about claims of Indigenous heritage in the city.

In a statement, Queen's University said it takes the concerns about Blanchard "very seriously" and is "beginning the important process of setting up a review of our internal processes around Indigenous identity."

Queen's states there are no current ties with Blanchard and he "is not and has never been an employee of Queen's University."