Indigenous judge and TRC chair Murray Sinclair dies at 73

Murray Sinclair, father of five, a grandfather and the chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission died Monday morning at the age of 73.

The man who grew to become a highly decorated and influential person to work in Indigenous justice and advocacy died in a Winnipeg hospital, according to his son Niigaan.

Sinclair was born in 1951 and raised on the former St. Peter’s Indian Reserve found north of Winnipeg as a member of the Peguis First Nation.

Sinclair published a memoir earlier in September titled Who We Are: Four Questions for a Life and a Nation and described the discrimination he experienced being from the Anishinaabe people and attending a non-Indigenous school.

He graduated from law school at the University of Manitoba in 1979 and was called to the bar as the first Indigenous judge in Manitoba in 1988 – and the second judge in Canada – to be appointed as an associate chief judge of the provincial court.

Sinclair then became a judge at the – what it was called at the time – Court of Queen’s Bench in 2001.

He worked as a judge for a total of 28 years.

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Sinclair also served as co-chair of the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry of Manitoba examining whether the justice system was failing Indigenous people following the murder of Helen Betty Osborne and the police shooting death of J. J. Harper in 1988.

The judge also directed the Pediatric Cardiac Surgery Inquest into the deaths of 12 children at Winnipeg’s Health Sciences Centre in 1994.

Sinclair was given a National Aboriginal Achievement Award – now called the Indspire Awards – in the field of justice in 1994, followed by a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2017.

The judge was appointed to the chair of Canada’s Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission in June 2009.

Sinclair was also awarded the Manitoba Bar Association’s Equality Award in 2001 and the Canadian Bar Association’s president’s medal in 2018.

The judge was appointed to the Senate in 2016 and finally retired from that role in 2021.

In 2022, Sinclair received the Order of Canada for dedicating his life to championing Indigenous Peoples’ rights and freedoms.

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Sinclair limited his public engagements afterwards due to declining health. In his memoir he described living with congestive heart failure and nerve damage, leading to him relying on a wheelchair.

The former judge spoke at the 2023 swearing-in ceremony of Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew – the first First Nations person to lead a province – and called the milestone “Manitoba’s true act of reconciliation.”

Just before noon Monday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau posted on X a reflection on Sinclair’s body of work and dedication, and his sympathies with Sinclair’s grieving family.

The Honourable Murray Sinclair dedicated his life to repairing Canada’s relationship with Indigenous Peoples. As the Chief Commissioner of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, he challenged us to confront the darkest parts of our history — because he believed we could learn… pic.twitter.com/6MblQg9fTg

— Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) November 4, 2024

– With files from The Canadian Press