Sinclair travelled the country for six years hearing the stories of survivors of residential schools for the commission, which produced 94 calls to action.
Toronto Star: OTTAWA—Murray Sinclair, former chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, has died at age 73.
“Peacefully and surrounded by love” from his family, Sinclair died Monday in Winnipeg after battling congestive heart failure and subsequently being hospitalized over the past few months.
“The impact of our dad’s work reached far across the country and the world. From Residential School Survivors, to law students, to those who sat across from him in a courtroom, he was always known as an exceptional listener who treated everyone with dignity and respect,” said Sinclair’s family in a statement.
“We know that stories of his kindness, generosity, and fairness will circulate for generations to come.”
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Sinclair, who was Manitoba’s first Indigenous judge and the second in Canada, lived a life dedicated to public service. An Anishinaabe leader in the justice system, Sinclair’s legacy will be felt by Indigenous people for generations to come.
He is known best for his work in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, where he served as chair alongside Chief Wilton Littlechild and Marie Wilson. Their final report documented the stories and legacies of survivors of Canada’s Indian residential schools, and its 94 calls to action have become a road map for Canada on proceeding toward reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples.
A dedicated husband, father and grandfather, Sinclair leaves behind his five children Gazheek, Niigaanwewidam (James), Dené, Kizhay and Miskodagwaaginikwe, as well as several grandchildren. Sinclair had lost his wife, Katherine, to cancer in June.
Sinclair’s family has asked for privacy at this time. A sacred fire will be lit outside the Manitoba Legislative Building on Monday for members of the public who wish to make offerings of tobacco and pay their respects.
Early life and career
Sinclair was born Calvin Murray Sinclair in Selkirk, Man., on Jan. 24, 1951, on the former St. Peter’s Indian Reservation, to his mother, Florence, and father, Henry. A member of the Peguis First Nation, his name in Ojibway, MazinaGiizhik, means “the one who speaks of pictures in the sky.”
Sinclair’s mother died of a stroke when he was one year old, and he was raised by his grandparents, Catherine and Jim Sinclair, alongside his three siblings, Richard, Henry Jr. (known as Buddy) and Dianne. Sinclair’s grandmother was Saulteaux-French Métis from the Fort Alexander area and taught him to speak Michif.
Sinclair showed great promise from a young age. As a teenager, he served with the 6 Jim Whitecross Royal Canadian Air Cadet Squadron, earning top awards for leadership. In 1968, at 16, Sinclair graduated from high school at Selkirk Collegiate as valedictorian and athlete of the year his senior year.
He studied sociology and history at the University of Winnipeg. After two years, Sinclair took a leave from school to return home and look after his ailing grandmother and worked at the Selkirk Indian and Métis Friendship Centre.
In 1971, he was elected vice-president for the Interlake Region of the Manitoba Métis Federation and served until 1973, leaving to work as a special assistant for Manitoba’s attorney general. After two years, Sinclair returned to school, graduating in 1975, and then entered law school at the University of Manitoba.
During 25 years working in the justice system, Sinclair focused on civil and criminal litigation as well as Indigenous and human rights law, representing many First Nations bands, Indigenous child and welfare agencies, friendship centres, Métis organizations and Indigenous corporations, as well as serving as legal counsel for the Manitoba Human Rights Commission. In 1981 he became legal counsel for the Four Nations Confederacy and began teaching courses on Indigenous issues and law at the University of Manitoba and giving lectures throughout the country.
In March 1988, Sinclair was appointed associate chief judge of the Provincial Court of Manitoba. He would serve as a judge in the province until 2016.
That same year, Sinclair was asked to serve as co-commissioner of the Public Inquiry into the Administration of Justice and Aboriginal Peoples of Manitoba with Associate Chief Justice Al Hamilton. Their study produced almost 300 recommendations that had a profound impact on Canada’s justice system. A few years later, Sinclair would also direct the Manitoba Pediatric Cardiac Surgery Inquest into the death of 12 children at Winnipeg’s Health Sciences Centre in 1994.
“It’s no coincidence that at virtually the exact same time I was appointed to Manitoba’s court in March 1988, Indigenous leader John Joseph “J.J.” Harper was shot by Winnipeg police Const. Robert Cross,” Sinclair told the Star’s Deborah Dundas in an interview in September. The death of Joseph was one cause of the public inquiry he conducted with Hamilton.
“There is still much work to do; Canada is still infected with a great deal of racism that influences policy and attitudes and undermines attempts for change — but we need to see that the country has learned some things and needs to continue on this path.”
Beyond his career in justice, Sinclair also served as a cultural leader in the Anishinaabe community alongside his wife and life partner, Katherine Morrisseau-Sinclair, an Anishinaabek woman, artist and educator from Ste. Rose du Lac, Man., for over 40 years.
Sinclair is a member of the fish-clan and an Ojibwe speaker. He and Morrisseau-Sinclair were deeply involved as spiritual leaders, both Road Chiefs of the Three Fires Midewiwin Lodge, as well as community advocates. Sinclair is also a second degree member of the Midewiwin (Grand Medicine) Society of the Ojibway.
“At the basis of most Indigenous teachings about the path of life is love,” Sinclair told Dundas. “Love is at the centre of all things in the earth, in the water, in our relationships. If we begin, and even if we end, there we will be OK.”
In 2014, the couple, their daughters and granddaughters took part in the Lake Winnipeg Water Walk, a 1,400-kilometre walk over 28 days to raise awareness of the lake’s health.
Truth and Reconciliation Commission
In 2009, Sinclair would take on his most notable role as the head commissioner of Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, serving as chair alongside Littlechild and Wilson. The commission was mandated to investigate and document the abuse and cultural genocide administered by the federal government and church bodies during the 150 years of Canada’s Indian residential school system. Nearly 4,000 Indigenous children are recorded to have died while at the schools, and experts say the numbers could be thousands higher.
The commission began a year after then Prime Minister Stephen Harper delivered his apology on behalf of the federal government for Canada’s role in the schools, and was part of the 2007 final settlement from the class-action lawsuit brought by the Assembly of First Nations and Indian Residential School Survivors against the Canadian government and administering church bodies.
For six years, Sinclair and his co-chairs travelling the country listening to the testimonies of more than 6,500 survivors, their families and communities. Sinclair also oversaw the multimillion-dollar fundraising program that supported various TRC events and helped survivors travel to events.
In 2015, the commission released its landmark final report and 94 “Calls to Action.”
“As commissioners, we, and those who accompanied us, have been touched by all that we have witnessed, all that we have heard, and all that has been shared with us and with the rest of Canada,” Sinclair said at the closing ceremony in December 2015.
“We cannot say we are the same as when we started — we are not; but then again, neither is this country.”
Upon receiving the report, Trudeau released a statement saying he hoped it would “help heal some of the pain caused by the Indian residential school system and begin to restore the trust lost so long ago,” and stated the government’s commitment to fully implementing the calls to action.
Only 13 of the 94 calls are reported to have been fully implemented as of 2023.
“You have to remember that we’re writing for the future, not just for this government,” Sinclair said at the ceremony. “Our view is that this report is going to have to stand the test of time and when people look back not just at the report today and see how it impacted today, they should also be looking at this report in the future and using it to guide their activities into the future.”
‘A council of Elders’
In April 2016, Sinclair was appointed by Trudeau to the Senate, the 16th Indigenous person to be appointment to the institution, which Sinclair would later refer to as “a council of Elders.”
“I approach this appointment with hope for the future, and remain committed to reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people, something I believe in my heart is possible,” he said.
While in the Senate, Sinclair also returned to his law career in 2020 joining Cochrane Saxberg LLP in Winnipeg, the largest Indigenous law firm in Manitoba.
Sinclair retired from the Senate in January 2021, going on to accept a position as Queen’s University’s 15th — and first Indigenous — chancellor. In 2022, Sinclair was invested as a companion of the Order of Canada for dedicating his life to “truth, justice and reconciliation” and for championing Indigenous Peoples’ rights and freedoms.
Sinclair stepped down from that role this past June, staying on at Queen’s as the special adviser to the principal on reconciliation.
In September, Sinclair published his memoir, “Who We Are: Four Questions For a Life and a Nation,” centred around Indigenous ways of knowing as well as Canada’s future with reconciliation.
“I framed my story as a pursuit of trying to understand myself as an Indigenous person in Canada while at the same time inviting readers to consider how, by asking their own four questions, they will realize their creation story intersects with mine,” Sinclair told Dundas.
“Together, we are one beautiful — albeit complicated — story.”
Sinclair has received multiple honours for his work, including the National Aboriginal Achievement Award in 1994, Manitoba Bar Association’s Equality Award in 2001 and Distinguished Service Award in 2016, Indspire’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2017, President’s Award from the Canadian Bar Association in 2018, the Adrienne Clarkson Prize for Global Citizenship in 2020, as well as several honourary degrees.
He has also been named to the Order of Manitoba in 2024 and named a recipient of the Meritorious Service Cross in 2017.
Sinclair had long been dealing with health issues. In 2007, Sinclair has suffered a minor stroke, something he later referred to as “a wake-up call.” He made a full recovery and began writing his memoirs as letters to his granddaughter, Sarah. Last winter, Sinclair and Morrisseau-Sinclair moved into assisted living together in Winnipeg. Sinclair had been living with diagnoses of congestive heart failure and lymphodema. Morrisseau-Sinclair died of cancer on June 27.
According a family update on Facebook, Sinclair had been in the hospital in Winnipeg for the past few months, battling illness before being moved into the intensive care unit about a week ago when his health took a turn.
In lieu of flowers, the family is asking for donations to The Murray Sinclair Memorial Fund at The Winnipeg Foundation, to “prioritize Indigenous women, children, families, and Survivors.”
Joy SpearChief-Morris is an Ottawa-based reporter covering federal politics and Indigenous issues for the Star. Reach her via email: jspearchiefmorris@thestar.ca