Former NDP MP Romeo Saganash stands during question period in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Sept. 25, 2018.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press
Former NDP MP Romeo Saganash is expected to appear in a Winnipeg courtroom on Tuesday after being charged with sexual assault.
An employee at the provincial courthouse in Winnipeg confirmed the charge faced by Mr. Saganash, who represented the Quebec electoral riding of Abitibi‐Baie‐James‐Nunavik‐Eeyou from 2011 to 2019.
APTN was the first to report on Mr. Saganash’s charge on Friday. The news outlet said he confirmed that he had been charged.
Mr. Saganash could not be reached for comment by The Globe and Mail on Friday.
Winnipeg Police say that an alleged incident took place on May 1 and Mr. Saganash was arrested on June 27. The service said that the matter is now before the courts.
While serving as an NDP MP, Mr. Saganash, a Cree lawyer and a residential school survivor, was his party’s Indigenous affairs critic, working on issues including legislation on the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
The federal NDP has declined to comment on his charge.
Mr. Saganash is also no longer serving on a committee at the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation (NCTR), based in the Manitoba capital.
A spokesperson for the centre said Friday that Mr. Saganash was previously a member of a circle of residential school survivors offering advice on missing children and unmarked burials to a committee administered by the centre and the federal government.
The spokesperson said he no longer serves as a member and no longer has a role with the NCTR.
In July, 2022, then Crown-Indigenous Relations minister Marc Miller and NCTR executive director Stephanie Scott announced the establishment of the committee so Indigenous communities could access information on efforts to identify, locate and commemorate missing children.