B.C. judge warns of 'tsunami' of Indigenous identity fraud cases

WARNING: This story contains details of child sexual exploitation and pornography.

After he was charged with possessing child pornography, Nathan Allen Joseph Legault discovered a figure from his past he hoped might help with his future.

The Prince Rupert, B.C., man — a former Baptist associate pastor — learned that a great-great-grandmother had been Métis, and based on that distant connection he asked for the special consideration Canada's highest court mandates for sentencing Indigenous offenders.

The judge who heard the case ultimately found that Legault had nothing in his life experience as a newly self-identified Indigenous person to lessen the "moral blameworthiness" he bore for sending graphic images of himself to teenage girls.

Judge David Patterson didn't rule on whether Legault is or is not actually Métis — that's not his job. But in reluctantly ordering a sentence that will see the 30-year-old avoid hard jail time, he warned that courts need to deal with non-Indigenous offenders trying to game the system.

"A tsunami is coming; driven by the desire of non-Indigenous people to get what they perceive to be the benefits of identifying as Indigenous," Patterson said as he handed Legault a conditional sentence of two years less a day.

"I am of the view that the only way to give meaning to the Supreme Court of Canada's teaching ... is for judges to be alive to the issue of Indigenous identity fraud and require some proof that satisfies the court that the person being sentenced is entitled to be sentenced as an Indigenous person."

Patterson sentenced Legault at the end of January, but the judgment was only recently posted online.

The lengthy ruling is notable both for the judge's deep dive into questions of Indigenous identity and his misgivings about a deal between defence and the Crown he feared was "not only unduly lenient but also has the potential to bring the administration of justice into disrepute."

Legault's crimes centred around communication with two girls he met while serving first as a youth camp director in Saskatchewan and next as a pastoral intern in Windsor, Ont.

He sent his victims altered pictures of their faces cropped onto the nude bodies of children. He also sent a video of himself masturbating to one of the girls and sent graphic pictures and videos of himself to friends of both girls.

Legault pleaded guilty to two counts of making and possessing child pornography. He also co-operated with police, expressed remorse and garnered the support of his wife, parents, siblings and former church members.

Still, Patterson said he was "uncomfortable" with the sentence, which sees Legault adhere to a curfew during the week and house arrest on weekends.

But the judge said he felt he had no choice but to "reluctantly endorse" the joint submission because it wasn't "a certainty" that the sentence would be contrary to the public interest.