Murray Sinclair takes part in a media scrum, following the release of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s report in 2015, on the grounds of Rideau Hall.Stephanie Scott/Supplied
Kristy Kirkup is a reporter for The Globe and Mail based in Ottawa.
Nearly a decade ago, on my first day working at the national wire service, I was given an important assignment: cover the release of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s report.
The stakes were high and my stomach was in knots. I could not mess this up.
After the report came out, I recall reporters having a chance to speak to chairman Murray Sinclair – who spent six years hearing the horrors of residential schools – after a closing ceremony held at Rideau Hall. There, small hearts had been placed in the ground.
Looking back, I remember feeling the seriousness of his presence. He carefully listened to questions and was deliberate in his responses.
The following year, he was named to the Senate. I knew he intended on doing the job for five years. One of my central beats was to cover the Indigenous affairs file. And so, boldly, I decided to make it my mission to earn his trust while he was in Ottawa.
I called Mr. Sinclair’s office and asked to take him to lunch in the Parliamentary Dining Room in Centre Block.
There, we talked about how the media had failed Indigenous people, including in their coverage of residential schools. I told him I wanted to do better, that I was keen to listen and that I wanted to cover his work and Indigenous affairs with trust, professionalism and respect.
I guess he believed me, because that is exactly what we did.
Over the years, despite his busy schedule, Mr. Sinclair accepted my requests for interviews, although they took some creativity to arrange. We normally would have to connect over lunch hour given the other duties that he was juggling, including in the Red Chamber.
Through his executive assistant, Natasha Entwistle, I learned he liked toasted tomato sandwiches and iced tea. And so I’d show up with the sandwiches and a recorder, and we’d talk about very traumatic topics together over lunch, including the fallout from abuse suffered by residential-school survivors. It was a bit surreal.
At one point, while I was covering a difficult series of stories about sexual abuse involving Indigenous children, he looked at me and told me to take care of myself. I thought I was going to cry.
How was my mental well-being even on his radar? Looking back now, I know why: He could not turn off his compassion.
The last time I visited him in his Senate office, we met mid-afternoon. I wrongfully assumed that he’d eaten by that point and so arrived empty-handed. He genuinely was so disappointed that I didn’t bring a sandwich. Still, he did the interview, albeit starving.
After he retired from the Senate in January, 2021, interviews continued, including on topics such as First Nations child welfare. That November, he was tapped to facilitate talks to see parties reach a deal on compensation for First Nations children who were unnecessarily taken into the child-welfare system.
But he never really let me live down the time that I forgot his sandwich.
His health, meantime, was deteriorating. And so, earlier this year, I boarded a flight to see him in Winnipeg, where he was in assisted living with his wife Katherine.
I knew if I showed up without food, it would be game over (okay, he would have made fun of me).
On short notice, he agreed to go to a provincial justice summit in the morning at the request of Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew, a long-time family friend. I was scrambling to think of how to cover that event and grab food without a vehicle.
I turned to Uber Eats and ordered some bannock from Shelly’s in Winnipeg, an Indigenous bistro. A driver in a small vehicle showed up at the assisted-living home with a big brown bag. Mr. Sinclair was pleased about the bannock, and jokingly told a staff member that it was a big bag of marijuana.
He then introduced me to small songbirds that he had befriended inside the home and told me about sitting near their cage and doing crosswords from The New York Times and The Washington Post.
He then sat down for the interview, with the big bag of bannock placed right beside his chair. Before we began, he asked to see pictures of my two children.
We inevitably talked about some heavy stuff: the state of his health, the stage of life that he was in, the issue of denialism of residential schools, his views on white supremacy and how he still spoke by phone to survivors.
He then went with photographer Shannon Vanraes and me to Selkirk, Man., where he grew up, and showed us places of significance. We visited a local high school where there is a mural of him on the wall. I could tell that he was exhausted by all of this, but he did it anyway.
There was an underlying tension that day: He didn’t want to slow down but his health was dictating otherwise.
When I got out of the vehicle when we arrived back in Winnipeg, we said goodbye. I knew that would be the last time that I saw him.
When the story was published in The Globe and Mail, he teased me for not including a reference to his affection for toasted tomatoes.
After he died on Monday, The Globe’s coverage of his death included a reference to his favourite sandwich. I can hear him laughing about it. And at his public funeral in Winnipeg on Sunday, I suspect others will reflect on his quirky sense of humour.
I think that’s maybe what I will remember the most: Murray built bridges with people he had no reason to trust and remained hopeful that we can, and must, do better.
And seriously, take it from me: Don’t forget the sandwich.