The great Murray Sinclair:
You have to learn to love the people even when they do not love you.
2024: Portrait by Kent Monkman: The Honourable Senator Emeritus Murray Sinclair
48” x 36” Acrylic on canvas
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MUST WATCH/LISTEN!
She. M.@MusingsbyShe:
Two fabulous men.
@connie_walker:
Tonight, I’m thinking about Justice Murray Sinclair and of the times that I was lucky enough to hear him speak about his work with the TRC. This moment stands out for me.
It’s his answer when he was asked, “Why can’t you just get over it?”
He said: “My answer has always been: Why can’t you always remember this? Because this is about memorializing those people who have been the victims of a great wrong. Why don’t you tell the United States to ‘get over’ 9/11?…”
“Why don’t you tell this country to get over all of the veterans who died in the Second World War instead of honouring them once a year? Why don’t you tell your families to stop thinking about all of your ancestors who died? …”
“It’s because it’s important for us to remember. We learn from it. And until people show that they have learned from this, we will never forget and we should never forget even once they have learned from it, because this is a part of who we are…“
“It’s not just a part of who we are as survivors and children of survivors and relatives of survivors, but as part of who we are as a nation and this nation must never forget what it once did to its most vulnerable people.”
– Justice Murray Sinclair on The Current in 2017.
I am often sternly told to “get over it” referring to the many rapes I endured as a child that caused significant damages to my body and which cause me difficulty most days. Callous cruelty.
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Loreen Pindera, retired national CBC Radio journalist, posted to FB:
The Honourable Murray Sinclair died today. I learned just a few days ago he
was very ill. Still, I am left reeling. He was only 73 … but what he
accomplished in those 73 years!
I know many many will write about what this man did for our country: how he
brought awareness to Canadians and the world of the impact of centuries of
injustice on First Nations people, how he made reconciliation with
Indigenous people a pressing priority and even, I dare say, an emerging
reality.
I will remember him as a friend and my greatest mentor, who led by example
… ever-patient, so articulate, so determined to out the truth, (mostly)
without rancour.
I was a cub reporter when assigned to cover the Manitoba Aboriginal Justice
Inquiry in 1988. It was to be co-chaired by this sharp, approachable young
Aboriginal lawyer who’d been recently appointed provincial court judge by
Premier Howard Pawley. He was … so cool. It was not a common sight then (or
now!) to meet a judge who wore a ribbon shirt and a braid down his back. He
understood the power of the media like no one I had ever met, making sure
there was always a place for reporters on the rickety prop plane that flew
into the most remote places in Manitoba to hear testimony from chiefs and
elders and ordinary people about the ways they had been treated by the
schools and health care institutions, social service agencies and the
justice system.
He taught me how to listen, to really listen (and still, how often I failed
to hear!) Patiently and without judgment. He invited me and my fellow
non-Indigenous journalists into a sweat lodge in Norway House, to take full
part in a spiritual experience that was until then unknown to me. At the
same time, he was the most tech-savvy guy I’d ever met. He was the first
person I knew who understood the inner workings of the very earliest laptop
computers (remember Tandy?) Despite his stature as a judge and inquiry
commissioner, he took the time late at night to help this stressed-out
fledgling reporter figure out how to file audio clips through phone lines
from a remote community that, as I recall, only had a single working
landline.
He was a visionary. He patiently and affably nudged change. He drew on his
deep historical understanding of what we now call Indigenous-settler
relations, his legal knowledge and his gentle powers of persuasion to get
the CBC brass and other media outlets to stop using the word “Indian”
(though the department would be called Indian Affairs for many more years).
… All this, in 1988. My God, he was just 37 years old. He was already, in
my eyes, an elder statesman. He became my hero.
I am so glad I had a chance to tell you to your face, when I ran into you,
close to three decades later, in Montreal. I treasure the memory.
Murray Sinclair, rest in peace. My heart goes out to your children, your
grandchildren, all those who knew you.
Miigwich.
For my friends outside Canada who want to know about Sinclair’s work as the
co-commissioner of our Truth and Reconciliation Commission (and to my
Canadian friends, too!) here is a link to an excellent film by Alanis
Obamsawin, released in 2021, edited by my dear friend Alison Burns. You
will learn a lot and also get an idea of this man’s determination and
passion. He is our Mandela, our Tutu. I think the film is not geoblocked:
https://www.nfb.ca/film/honour-to-senator-murray-sinclair/
Refer also to:
Residential school: 215 birds set free by Kayla Bridget Williams-MacLean
