The body of late Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs Grand Chief Cathy Merrick will lie in state at Manitoba’s legislative building, a practice the province’s former chief of protocol calls a rare honour.
“It is a very special event for those that, you know, the government feels should be recognized as such,” said Dwight MacAulay, who spent almost 20 years as chief of protocol, from 1998-2017.
MacAulay recalls only one person given that honour in Manitoba during his time as chief protocol officer — Elijah Harper, who died in 2013.
Merrick, 62, died suddenly on Friday. She was speaking to reporters outside of Winnipeg’s law courts that afternoon when she collapsed and was rushed to hospital.
A wake, funeral and burial is being planned in her home community of Pimicikamak Cree Nation (also known as Cross Lake), about 520 kilometres north of Winnipeg, but dates have not yet been set.
Premier Wab Kinew said on Saturday that Merrick’s family and community have been given permission for her to lie in state, to allow the public to pay their respects, since not everyone will be able to attend the funeral in Pimicikamak.
The province is expected to announce the date for the lying in state soon.
For Harper, the casket was draped with the Canadian flag and there was a roped-off area where people could walk by.
“It’s a very special event and obviously the premier and the government feels Ms. Merrick was certainly worthy of something like this,” MacAulay said.
Merrick spent more than a decade as a band councillor at Pimicikamak and became the community’s chief in 2013 — only the second woman to do so.
She was elected grand chief of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs in October 2022 — becoming the first woman to lead the advocacy group in its nearly 35-year history — and was re-elected to the post in July 2024.
Pimicikamak Chief David Monias, who nominated Merrick as a candidate for grand chief, called her a great politician, a wonderful mom and grandmother and a dear friend.
“It’s a personal loss that I’m coming to terms with [and] trying to figure out how do we move on from here and how do I console my people and the families. It’s just too hard to do that when you’re grieving yourself,” he said. “I have a deep respect for her.”
Merrick could give “the biggest, greatest motherly hug you can get,” but she was also a fierce warrior who fought for social justice, Monias said.
“She died on the steps of the law courts defending the race of our people and speaking for the people who don’t speak for themselves,” he said.
Moments before she collapsed, Merrick passionately denounced what she called “a gross miscarriage of justice” following the acquittal of a Manitoba corrections officer charged in the 2021 death of William Ahmo, a First Nations man who was an inmate at Headingley Correctional Centre.
She was speaking to reporters about a different case when she collapsed.
“She was a natural leader and … so passionate about defending the rights of the people, and especially people who are being wronged,” Monias said.
“She was not scared to say what she had to say in her mind. The truth is what she was all about. She wanted to make sure that it was brought out.”
Donny McKay, a Pimicikamak band councillor who worked alongside Merrick for 26 years before she became grand chief, echoed those sentiments.
“She worked [so hard]. Sometimes I would get a call from her on a weekend … [when] she was chief saying ‘We gotta do this.’ I’d say ‘Oh no chief, get some rest. We can’t do this every weekend,'” he said.
“That’s how she was. She was very, very passionate to serve her people.”
But she was also down to earth, no matter how how she climbed the political ladder, he said.
She helped build a health centre and a women’s shelter in the community, he said.
“She was not any different than her constituents, her people, away from work. She would get involved. She loved to dance. She would dance anywhere. That’s her persona.”