REST IN PEACE | CBC BOOKS: Who We Are by Murray Sinclair

 Sorry to post this so late: Mr. Sinclair passed Nov. 4, 2024

READ:

https://www.aptnnews.ca/national-news/former-judge-senator-chair-of-trc-murray-sinclair-has-died/

 

LINK::  CBC : 14 books you heard about on CBC Radio recently

Who We Are by Murray Sinclair

Who We Are is a memoir by Murray Sinclair. (McClelland & Stewart)

Heard on: The Current

Murray Sinclair made his mark on Canadian society as a judge, activist, senator, the chief commissioner of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the co-chair of the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry — and now he writes all about it in his memoir Who We Are. The book answers the four guiding questions of Sinclair's life — Where do I come from? Where am I going? Why am I here? Who am I? — through stories about his remarkable career and trailblazing advocacy for Indigenous peoples' rights and freedoms. 

• Former judge, senator and TRC chair Murray Sinclair's upcoming memoir reflects on truth, justice & community

Murray Sinclair is a former judge and senator. Anishinaabe and a member of the Peguis First Nation, Sinclair was the first Indigenous judge appointed in Manitoba and the second appointed in Canada. He served as Co-Chair of the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry in Manitoba and as Chief Commissioner of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. He has won awards including the National Aboriginal Achievement Award, the Manitoba Bar Association's Equality Award and its Distinguished Service Award (2016) and has received Honorary Doctorates from 14 Canadian universities. 

Sara Sinclair is an oral historian of Cree-Ojibwa and mixed settler descent. She teaches at Columbia University and is currently co-editing two anthologies of Indigenous letters. 

Niigaan Sinclair is a writer, editor, activist and the head of the Department of Native Studies at the University of Manitoba. He is the co-editor of Manitowapow: Aboriginal Writings from the Land of Water and Centering Anishinaabeg Studies: Understanding the World Through Stories. He won the Peace Educator of the Year award in 2019. He is also the author of the book Wînipêk.

LISTEN | Murray Sinclair reads from his memoir on The Current:

LINK:

https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-63-the-current/clip/16097960-reflections-reconciliation-murray-sinclairs-memoir?share=true

 

Former judge, senator and chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Murray Sinclair reads an excerpt from his book Who We Are: Four Questions For a Life and a Nation. The memoir draws from his personal experiences to reflect on truth and reconciliation in Canada.

Catholic Church must ‘address deniers’ following apology

WATCH

Catholic Church must ‘address deniers’ following apology says Murray Sinclair

Brett Forester

Sorry is ‘an important milestone’ but more work must be done, according to the retired senator and former judge...

The former chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission is urging the Catholic Church to tackle residential school denialism following Pope Francis’s apology on Friday morning.

Church leaders who refuse to accept survivors’ truths are, right now, “the biggest source of resistance to reconciliation,” says Murray Sinclair.

“Denialism was allowed to flourish because of the silence that was coming from the Pope,” said the retired senator in an interview. “With this statement, those denying within the church — or denying in public because of the church being able to support denialism — will no longer have that ladder upon which they can stand.”

On the final day of an Indigenous delegation’s Vatican visit, the pontiff uttered a long-awaited and much-anticipated sorry “for the role that a number of Catholics” had in abusing children forced to attend Canada’s residential schools.

“All these things are contrary to the gospel of Jesus Christ,” Francis said. “For the deplorable conduct of those members of the Catholic Church, I ask for God’s forgiveness and I want to say to you with all my heart: I am very sorry.”

The role these Catholics had in wounding Indigenous children and stripping them of their identity, culture and spirituality filled him with feelings of shame, sorrow and indignation, the pontiff added.

His apology comes nearly seven years after the TRC delivered its final report. In it, Call to Action 58 urged the pope to apologize for the “Catholic Church’s role in the spiritual, cultural, emotional, physical, and sexual abuse of First Nations, Inuit, and Métis children.”

Pope’s apology a powerful gesture, but unlikely to affect court cases in Canada, experts say READ

Francis didn’t outright apologize for the church’s institutional role in perpetrating the abuse but rather the bad behaviour of individual Catholics that, he suggested, had turned their backs on their faith.

Sinclair told APTN the contrition “is a major step” but said Francis still must come to Canada and face survivors to fulfill Call to Action 58.  Sinclair also said the reference to policies of cultural assimilation was a notable insinuation of institutional guilt.

“That’s important,” Sinclair said. “That should be taken together with the apology for the individuals who committed wrongs. The one thing that arguably was missing was an acknowledgement that they put those people in place, in those positions of power where they could get away with that.”

Nevertheless, Sinclair said in a press release it was an important moment and long past time the church took responsibility for “a dark chapter of Canada’s colonialist history, one which the Church was a key co-author.”

The former judge took control of the TRC in 2009 as it began crisscrossing the country seeking out survivors and documenting the horrors of residential schools. He was appointed to the Senate in 2016 and retired in 2021.

KEEP READING 

CANADA leads THE WAY on reconciliation - is AMERICA next? Real reconciliation requires JUSTICE and arrests!  TLH

Pope Francis apologizes for church role in Indigenous residential schools - The Washington Post 

Pope's apology a powerful gesture, but unlikely to affect court cases in Canada, experts say

 

In The News

Continuing Coverage: (click headline)

First Nation condemns 'inadequate' punishment of BC lawyer who took on '60s scoop cases

Nelson Star

Stephen Bronstein was suspended for one month and fined $4,000 after admitting to mishandling the cases of Sixties Scoop survivors.  A First Nation in B.C.’s Cariboo region is condemning the B.C. Law Society’s handling of a Vancouver lawyer’s mishandling of residential school survivor cases.

Bronstein was  fined $4,000 after admitting to mishandling the cases of residential school survivors. He was also barred from acting as counsel for any ’60s Scoop claimants in the future.

The ’60s Scoop was a large-scale program that allowed child welfare organizations to remove Indigenous children from their families and place them in the foster care system and allow them to be adopted by white families.

The Tŝilhqot’in Nation on Wednesday condemned the law society for not adequately punishing Bronstein, noting that many of his clients were from the First Nation.

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NDP joins call for provincial gov't to apologize for residential schools

CKOM News Talk Sports

He pointed to an event in the legislative building when Moe jigged with '60s Scoop survivors but after that, Belanger said, the survivors got nothing.

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Lawmakers strengthen Oregon Indian Child Welfare Act

KTVZ

The bill codifies provisions from the federal Indian Child Welfare Act in state law and will ensure that Oregon's practices better serve Indian children, ...

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Canadians struggling from a sense of shame, misinformation, Murray Sinclair says

Nunatsiaq News

Sinclair said the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's Calls to Action 71 to 84 discuss missing children and those burial sites specifically.

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Orange Shirt Day founder Phyllis Webstad was recently told she is a link for reconciliation between First Nations and non-First Nations in Canada.

Phyllis Webstad was 6 years old when the new orange shirt she chose for her 1st day of school was stripped off her back. It was the early 70s & she was the 3rd generation to attend St. Joseph’s Residential School in Williams Lake, BC.

OUR HOMETOWN: Truth and reconciliation champion

Phyllis Webstad continues to help the country understand the residential school legacy 

WATCH

• Monica Lamb-Yorski
• Jun. 10, 2021 

While the suggestion is daunting, the 53-year-old member of the Stswecem’c Xgat’tem First Nation said she cannot help but think about a picture of a bridge hanging on her living room wall that her Aunt Agnes Jack purchased at a yard sale.

“The bridge is woven together with rope and tree roots,” she said. “It’s not pretty, it’s not perfect, but it’s enough that you could walk across it.”

Webstad said she keeps thinking about that.

“That’s been my life it seems because I grew up on the reserve, I’m half Secwepemc, I’m half white and I have lighter skin so I’ve been more readily accepted in the non-Indigenous community and I’ve been able to be a bridge builder or gap person.”

She described the time period since the announcement confirming the remains of 215 children buried at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School as a whirlwind.

Webstad’s mom Rose Wilson gave birth to her in July 1967 at her grandmother Lena Jack’s home in Dog Creek. She found her birth father in Kamloops a few years ago. “I have eight other siblings, one passed away, so there are seven. They all live in Kamloops.”

 Read more: Orange Shirt Society launches first textbook on residential school history

READ EVEN MORE

 

the Indigenous Rights Movement in Canada Honored with Top Amnesty Intl Award

Published April 14, 2017

MONTREAL – Celebrated global music artist and activist Alicia Keys and the inspirational movement of Indigenous Peoples fighting for their rights in Canada have been honored with Amnesty International’s Ambassador of Conscience Award for 2017, the human rights organization announced today.
The award will be officially presented at a ceremony in Montréal, Canada, on May 27.
Accepting the award recognizing the Indigenous rights movement of Canada will be six individuals representing the strength and diversity of the movement, which has bravely fought to end discrimination and ensure the safety and well-being of Indigenous families and communities. They are Cindy Blackstock, Delilah Saunders, Melanie Morrison, Senator Murray Sinclair, Melissa Mollen Dupuis and Widia Larivière.

Cindy Blackstock hopes that the award will help to focus global attention on the injustices still prevalent in Canada today.
As head of the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society, she led a decade-long legal battle against the underfunding of social services for First Nations children. In 2016, the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal issued a landmark ruling calling on the federal government to take immediate action to end its discriminatory practices.
However, the Canadian government has continued to drag its feet in fully complying with the ruling, meaning that First Nations children are still suffering discrimination.
“The conscience of the people is awakening to the Canadian government’s ongoing racial discrimination towards First Nations children and their families,” said Cindy Blackstock. “Now the question is: What are we going to do about it? Are we going to allow Canada to celebrate its 150th birthday while it bathes in racism, or will we speak up and demand the discrimination stops?”

READ: Alicia Keys and the Indigenous Rights Movement in Canada Honored with Top Amnesty Intl Award - Native News Online