Ritchie Sinclair claims:

– to be a 1979 graduate of George Brown College, Toronto, ON

“# RITCHIE SINCLAIR – SWORN
EVIDENCE IN-CHIEF BY MR. SINCLAIR:
Justice Godfrey: All right, what would you like to tell me, Mr. Sinclair?
A: I’m sorry Your Honour?
Justice Godfrey: What would you like to tell me?
A: Uh, I am a graduate of Commercial Art at George Brown College, 1979.
(Court Trans/Otavnik v Sinclair: Part 6 ovs p158

• Ritchie Sinclair is a longtime acolyte and business associate of Donald Robinson of Toronto’s Kinsman Robinson Galleries, where he has been a private dinner guest, made video presentations, done guided tours, been praised in KRG blogs, thanked as an authority in Donald Robinson’s “expert” reports, etc. They have been “tag team” partners, and the only witnesses on the losing side, in several court cases (Otavnik v Sinclair 2010, Hatfield v Child 2012) where they have sought, unsuccessfully, to convincingly represent the Conspiracy Theorist position. (They have already signed up for more joint court performances in 2013).

My Take: Perjury, Delusion or Dementia?

Ritchie Sinclair is a well-known white Canadian Indian imposter/impersonator. Alas, we fear, he’s also an academic imposter/impersonator…

In his very first sentence in replying to a request for a bio from Judge Godfrey, Sinclair lies.

He claims to have graduated from George Brown College somewhere in the 1979-80 period. That means recognized by a paper of some kind, right?

Community Colleges were started in Ontario, in the 1960s, during the years I was a high school teacher in Toronto. At that time an Ontario High School grad needed five years, including Grade XIII, to graduate; Ritchie Sinclair claims to have had four years to his credit.

Community colleges were started to put students who weren’t academically inclined – the four-year stream kids, without the abilities to advance in the academic stream to go on to university and the professions – to learn some technical skills instead of just becoming “high school dropouts” which they were considered at the time.

In spite of Mr. Sinclair’s fondness, in court, of calling his teacher there a professor, the community colleges at that time were staffed with technical teachers, who had more “hands-on” trades skills, than “professorial” academic credentials, which is why they were hired.

No Community Colleges in the 60s and 70s were degree granting institutions. Even in 2013, though some now give degrees in a few subjects, the overwhelming majority of credentials they grant to students continue to be certificates and diplomas.

In court Sinclair told Judge Godfrey he was a graduate of George Brown College, trying to build on one dishonesty – that he had a college graduate pedigree of some kind – to fox the judge into believing he’s maybe even got a modern style university degree, when he doesn’t even have the most rudimentary piece of paper colleges gave out during their early years.

“I Have a Degree” – On one of his other websites, in fact, Sinclair actually states “I have a degree.” Though he is – understandably – not forthcoming where and when he got it.

Lots of degrees, we all know, are available online, with affordable and quickie M.A.s, and Ph.D.s arriving by email daily… It appears Sinclair may have sent his money…

In court testimony on different occasions Sinclair was forced to admit, through rigorous cross-examination that he actually never even completed the single one-year college preparatory course, which he attended sporadically for a few months, but leaving before he received any kind of formal graduation diploma, certificate, or degree of any kind.

The course he took, and dropped out of, was actually an introductory course, designed to help students who wanted to explore art as a career, a chance to dabble a bit , while they try to figure out what to do with their life.

The most talented and most motivated would then go on to the Ontario College of Art, or attend a University and get a degree in Fine Art.

Others, like Ritchie Sinclair, would just drop out, and hang out… And thirty years later, their art prices would reflect bad life choices early on:

People will pay more for a crappy washstand than for Ritchie Sinclair paintings.

During the Hatfield trial Defence Counsel Brian Schiller tried to come to grips with Sinclair’s mysterious, sketchy, and often non-existent academic record, to discover what, if anything, of substance was behind his huge malicious and defamatory attacks on so many genuine Morrisseau paintings, and other First Nations artists.

• Q. So you didn’t complete your schooling at George Brown, instead….
  A. No…
  Q. …it….
  A. …it was, it was completed. As far as my professor was concerned I, I completed the dictates of my course; he was overjoyed for me, and the course was a year-long course; I was…
  Q. So….
  A. …already…
  Q. So, sorry….
  A. …into it…
  Q. You’re…
  A. …nine months…
  Q. You….
  A. …at that time, so I would have got my diploma anyhow but…
  Q. But you didn’t….
  A. …I got to…
  Q. You don’t have….
  A. …leave early.
  Q. You don’t have a diploma, do you, sir?
  A. Well, I left without picking it up but I was told at the, at that meeting with Morrisseau, “You’ve got your diploma.” I mean, I’m sure I could get, get whatever it was but….
  Q. So your evidence is that, even though you didn’t complete the course, because you were going off with Mr. Morrisseau that qualified you to graduate; is that what you’re saying?
  A. That’s what my professor said and that’s what, see, the, the whole purpose of the course was to be hired in the field.
  Q. And how long was the course?
  A. It was a year-long.
  Q. And you finished eight months?
  A. Nine.
  Q. Nine. And were you given some designation as a result of that course?
  A. No; nor did I ever use such a thing such a designation.
  Q. And what did that course qualify you to do?
  A. Qualified me to do typeset; set-up; advertising; letter-set; very basic things that nobody uses any more.” (Court Trans/Hatfield v Child: Feb 23, 2012 p 124)

So, Sinclair, just like he “dropped out” of high school, he also “dropped out” of community college without even completing a single year.

So the Community Colleges, which were established in Ontario in the 1960s, especially to help out “problem kids” like Sinclair, failed him and let him drift away to an aimless existence, and finally end up as a Conspiracy Theorist “enforcer” which, apparently pays better than his life as an artist.

He finally testified, he learned nothing useful in the few months he did attend, so it was no big loss. So his only credentials are four years in high school. We think…

Offering some explanation why this self-proclaimed “Morrisseau expert” is not mentioned in any Morrisseau literature anywhere, and why he has made so many hundreds of utterly false appraisals in incorrectly calling so many forensically authenticated Morrisseau paintings forgeries.

In fact Sinclair is unique in Canada, the only person who claims to be an “expert” who has no paper credentials of any kind, and no record of genuine achievements, or is not mentioned in any professional literature in fields he pretends to be noteworthy.

He is not only a white Indian imposter/impersonator; he is also an academic imposter/impersonator.