We’ve looked behind the story about Councillor Lisa Robinson joining Bill Denby’s Kawartha Lakes “First Nation”. She doesn’t appear to have a connection to any Indigenous ancestry.
The latest news about Pickering Councillor Lisa Robinson is her appointment as a “Deputy Chief” of the Kawartha Lakes First Nations, also known as the Assembly of Kawartha Lakes First Nations, a group denounced by seven legitimate Williams Treaties First Nations. She was appointed by “Chief” William Denby, who created the Kawartha Lakes First Nations. There’s a really good write-up about him here: William J. Denby: Pretendian Chief | Pants On Fire
When news broke about her attendance at a rally in Ottawa in 2024, organized by the extremist Thunderbird Nationalist Party (with attendees wearing swastikas), there was a public uproar and a letter to the Premier of Ontario and the Minister of Municipal Affairs by six members of Pickering council. Robinson was invited to the gathering by Kelly Anne Farkas, who has assumed the name Wolfe. You can watch our video here and read about her on Kawartha Lee’s “Pants on Fire” blog too at this link: Kelly Anne Farkas (Wolfe) | Pants On Fire
While that issue was still hot and heavy, Robinson engaged in a discussion on Facebook and posted this in response to Councillor Mara Nagy:
“[H]ow do you know that I’m not part Indigenous? For you to claim it’s inappropriate for me to use certain language without knowing my background is both presumptive and ridiculous. You also have no right to tell me how I should speak when this is how the gathering was presented to me by the indigenous Natives who were once again promoting their [emphasis added] Cowboys and Indian Peace Talk Day with the white man. By the way, Indians are very proud to be called Indians and that is directly from Chief David Grey Eagle who will be returning to our Council Chambers shortly and he told me to tell you that YOU can take that directly up with him IF YOU DON’T like it.
Why is Robinson referring to “indigenous natives” in the third person? Why is she now the Deputy Chief of the Kawartha Lakes First Nations? We didn’t want to make any presumptions about any Indigenous ancestry, so we did some checking.
Councillor Robinson was born in Brantford on August 25, 1968, to Morris John Kowall and Dianna-Lynne (née Martinow, later Robinson).
Birth announcement
By 1973, she was referred to as Lisa Robinson in her role as a flower girl at her maternal grandmother’s remarriage. Newspaper articles in the Kingston Whig-Standard during the 1972-1974 period noted that Morris (“Moe”) Kowall was a player for the Collins Bay Saints, an inmate baseball team at the Collins Bay Penitentiary. Moe Kowall should not be confused with his brother Mark, who was concurrently serving a 10-year sentence at Millhaven Penitentiary for a series of armed bank robberies following a Canada-wide manhunt. It wasn’t until 1976 that a newspaper notice was placed in a Vancouver newspaper notifying Morris John Kowall about the proposed adoption of his children. Incidentally, Moe Kowall was again imprisoned after a 1994 conviction for defrauding a woman of $250,000. You can read more about that case in a 1996 decision by the Court of Appeal: 1996canlii411.pdf. The Kowall brothers may have once again ended up behind bars at the same time, after Mark Kowall’s 1995 conviction for arson.
Morris Kowall doesn’t appear to have any Indigenous ancestry. He was born February 27, 1947, as Morris John Kowalchuk Jr. to Morris John Kowalchuk Sr. and Audrey Josephine Bishop and was the eldest of four boys. Morris Sr. changed the family’s name from Kowalchuk to Kowall in 1951. Morris Kowalchuk Sr. doesn’t appear in Canadian or American census records before a voters list in 1949, when he was living in Brantford and working as a bartender. There is no indication that he had Indigenous roots.
Audrey Bishop, on the other hand, was born in England in 1928 to an English father and a Scottish mother. There is no indication of Indigenous ancestry for either of her parents.
ROBINSON’S MATERNAL ANCESTRY
Robinson’s maternal side is Ukrainian and English. Her maternal grandmother, Frances Dinnicombe Smith, was born in 1920 in Brantford to an English-born mother. Daisy Ethel Ansell, and a father born in Middlesex County, Ontario, Albert Smith. Albert “Bert” Smith stated on the 1921 census that his parents were both born in England.
Robinson’s maternal grandfather, Michael Martinow, was born in Montreal in 1914 (died 1973) to Ukrainian-born parents William Martinow (Anglicized from Wasyl Marchin) and Daria Mary Rozanko. William and Daria Martinow were in the bootlegging business. William Martinow had multiple criminal convictions, among them assaulting a police officer, obstructing police, keeping liquor for sale, attempted bribery of a police officer, welfare fraud, and inflicting grievous bodily harm. There is no indication of any family indigeneity for the Martinow family either. The only connection we could find was a conviction for selling liquor to “Indians”, which had nothing to do with their own ancestry.
With no indication anywhere that Lisa Robinson has any Indigenous ancestors, why has she accepted the role of Deputy Chief of a group that purports that it’s a First Nations band.
