Cabinet minister's Cree great-grandmother claims were untrue, records show

Relying on obituaries and census records, the National Post pieced together some of Lucy Brenneis's lineage. Boissonnault's office did not dispute the findings

OTTAWA — For years, Employment Minister Randy Boissonnault spoke in Parliament and at public events of his great-grandmother as “a full-blooded Cree woman,” sometimes called “Lucy Brown Eyes.”

Now, facing scrutiny over shifting statements he made about his connections to Indigenous ancestry and, presented with records suggesting otherwise, Boissonnault’s office acknowledges that this was not true and his adoptive great-grandmother’s family in fact had Metis lineage, and she was not “full-blooded Cree.”