This past week a great Canadian died and the accolades poured in. Murray Sinclair, former judge and senator, was only 74 (now young in my estimation) yet he led a remarkable life which touched so many people across Canada.
Sinclair was an Indigneous person who faced discrimination as he began his law practice as a young man. With his long black hair and ponytail judges would sometimes assume he was the accused rather than the white person alongside him. He was so disgusted by the prejudices of the judicial system that at first he turned down the offer to become the first Indigenous judge in Manitoba.
Sinclair became highly respected and was the ideal candidate for what may have been his most important and demanding role as Chief Commissoner for the national Truth and Reconciliation Commission. This was a lengthy process with the goal of listening to those who had been profoundly harmed by the Residential School System in Canada. Sinclair Sinclair participated in hundreds of hearings across Canada involving thousands of survivors. The culmination was the TRC’s report in 2015 with a section of 94 Calls to Action. I can't imagine what it was like for those commissioners to be witnesses to so much grief and pain, yet they did so with compassion and empathy. I wonder if this solemn responsibility contributed to his health challenges and relatively early death.
I have waited to write a blog entry about Murray Sinclair in the hope that the United Church would issue it's own statement about his death. The UCC was one of the denominations complicit in the cultural genocide of the Residential Schools, which were really institutions of indoctrination. As such there were representatives from the United Church present on a regular basis through the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and I'm assuming that some of them came to know Murray Sinclair. I hope there will be a denominational statement of respect and appreciation along the way.
This morning I'll pick up my library-hold copy of Sinclair's final book, Who We Are: Four Questions for a Life and A Nation. The publication is timely and I'll take the availability as providential.
One of the best ways we can honour Murray Sinclair is by reading the Calls to Action and asking how we can respond as a denomination and a nation. Here is a link to those recommendations because so much still needs to be done.
https://nctr.ca/about/history-of-the-trc/truth-and-reconciliation-commission-of-canada/
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