Murray Sinclair appears before the Senate Committe on Aboriginal Peoples in Ottawa on May 28, 2019. A public memorial honouring Sinclair's life is scheduled to take place at the Canada Life Centre in Winnipeg.Fred Chartrand/The Canadian Press
A public funeral will be held in Winnipeg Sunday for Murray Sinclair, who is being hailed as a giant for how he advanced the rights of Indigenous peoples and helped Canadians understand their role in reconciliation.
Mr. Sinclair, a former senator and judge who was chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, died in a Winnipeg hospital on Monday after a lengthy struggle with health issues and time recently spent in intensive care. He was 73.
A statement from Mr. Sinclair’s family on Tuesday afternoon said the funeral will take place at the Canada Life Centre in Winnipeg. It is being organized by the federal and provincial governments.
“The significance of Mazina Giizhik’s impact and reach can not be overstated,” the family’s statement said. “He touched many lives and impacted thousands of people.”
Mr. Sinclair was also known by his spirit name, Mazina Giizhik (The One Who Speaks of Pictures in the Sky).
All are welcome to attend the public memorial service to “celebrate his life and his journey home, in a good way,” the statement added.
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Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew said in an interview on Tuesday that he feels very sad for the Sinclair family, to which he is close to personally. The connection dates back to when the two families founded an Anishinaabe preschool in Winnipeg at the beginning of Mr. Kinew’s life.
Mr. Sinclair was a “family man” and being a father and a grandfather was very important to him, Mr. Kinew said.
He said he feels an “immense awe” for the life Murray led and that it tells a “remarkable story.” He noted it is one that includes overcoming personal hurdles, obtaining scholastic achievements, becoming a lawyer and a judge and encountering racism and overcoming barriers.
Mr. Kinew also pointed to Mr. Sinclair’s work as co-commissioner of the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry, called after events that raised significant questions about how the justice system was failing Indigenous people.
Additionally, he noted the pediatric cardiac inquiry that Mr. Sinclair conducted that was called after 12 children died in 1994. He later went on to chair the TRC, which spent six years documenting the horrors of residential schools that saw Indigenous children forcibly removed from their families and cultures and subjected to abuse.
Mr. Kinew said the “tremendous arc” of Mr. Sinclair’s life led to considerable influence and insight and yet Murray maintained a “commitment to goodness and to protecting the marginalized.” He also spoke to the mainstream in a way that they could understand, Mr. Kinew said.
Beginning on Monday, a sacred fire was lit outside the Manitoba Legislative Building and it is expected to burn until the funeral takes place. The family said it welcomes “everyone to visit his sacred fire to make an offering of tobacco and send him your best wishes.”
Mr. Sinclair’s relatives have asked no other fires, apart from the one at the legislature, be lit on his behalf out of respect for his journey to the spirit world.
On Tuesday, dozens of mourners visited the fire and lined up outside a tipi that has been erected around the sacred fire. As small groups entered the structure to offer tobacco, elders encircled the burning pit, humming prayers and throat songs for Mr. Sinclair.
Many attendees at the solemn procession, including Joyce White Bird from Rolling River First Nation, who lives in Brandon, Man., drove for hours to be there.
“It’s about paying respect to this enormous, empowering voice for our communities,” she said.
At the University of Manitoba, Mr. Sinclair’s alma mater, Dean of Law Richard Jochelson said the campus has felt shrouded by grief after his death.
He said the former lawyer and Manitoba’s first Indigenous judge made a profound impact, adding it changed the way “we think about the legal system and justice in this country.”
“But what’s really remarkable is this: despite the transformative person that he was, he still took time to frequently come in and meet the students here, sitting on a table with them to break bread like an equal, talking about their potential, what they could do as they moved forward,” he said.
“Even in his elderly years, he continued to share that wisdom.”
Outside the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation, which contains the archival repository for the material collected by the TRC that Mr. Sinclair presided over, an orange flag was lowered to half-mast Tuesday.
Across the city, many Winnipeg residents have displayed orange shirts on their front doors and windows of their homes in honour of Mr. Sinclair’s work. Some houses in west-end neighbourhoods have put up posters of him.
Canadians should be grateful to have witnessed the caliber of person that Mr. Sinclair was during their lifetimes, Mr. Kinew said.
He said Mr. Sinclair held a deep sense of responsibility to use his gifts, including “an amazing mind, a strong spirit, a big heart” in service of the public good for the Indigenous community, Manitoba and the country.
Mr. Sinclair showed him: “It’s about the kids; it’s about the community members. It’s about the seniors. It’s about the elders. It’s about the people. You have to bring everybody along on this journey.”