‘SECOND CHANCES’: Murray Sinclair’s legacy through the eyes of one he touched

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Tributes continue to pour in for Murray Sinclair and one woman said it was the influential judge’s decision in a Winnipeg court room decades ago that helped her to turn her life around.

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“When I was a teenager, I was charged with a very violent crime and when it came to my sentencing day, it was Judge Murray Sinclair that sentenced me,” 42-year-old Isabel Daniels of Winnipeg said.

Daniels has worked since 2009 in roles supporting and advocating for Indigenous women and girls in Manitoba, currently working in a supervisor role with Southeast Child and Family Services. When she was younger, however, Daniels said she was on a far different path that included gang life, crime, violence, and the real possibility of time behind bars as a teenager.

“I had gone through sexual abuse and physical abuse at home which led me to acting out in a very violent negative way at a very early age,” Daniels said.

By the time Daniels was 13 she said she was she was involved heavily with gangs and had been arrested for serious crimes. At 15, she was arrested and charged for an armed robbery she committed at a Winnipeg convenience store.

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Daniels faced as much as two-and-a-half-years in jail but said Sinclair offered her a different option that would involve cleaning up her life, rather than sitting behind bars.

“He read my pre-sentence report and everything that I had gone through in my childhood and what was currently going on at home,” Daniels said. “I was given the opportunity to either spend two-and-a-half years in jail or to leave the city and go to a culturally-based treatment program.”

Daniels said the offer to receive treatment was the turning point in her life and it led to her walking away from gangs, crime and violence and beginning to embrace advocacy and sobriety.

“I was introduced to our natural way of living. I attended sweats. I attended powwow. I attended all kinds of ceremonies. They worked with me on my trauma. A lot of the teachings that I received there stayed with me and I still use to this day,” she said.

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“It had a lifelong effect on how I see things, how I treat people, and how I do community work.”

Sinclair died in a Winnipeg hospital Monday morning at the age of 73. He is being remembered for his work as a judge, a senator and as the chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and for his decades-long work advocating for Indigenous rights in Canada.

In 1988 he was named the first Indigenous judge in Manitoba and just the second in Canada, and he also served as co-chair of the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry of Manitoba which examined ways the justice system was failing Indigenous people in Manitoba after the murder of Helen Betty Osborne, and the police-involved shooting death of J.J. Harper.

Sinclair’s legacy for Daniels will be the work he did on behalf of Indigenous Canadians, but also the personal connection she has with the former judge, and how he helped her during one of the most difficult periods of her own life.

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“I believe the opportunity that was given to me when I was a teenager is something that I have been paying forward for the last 25 years of my life,” she said. “I continue to support community, I believe in second chances for people.”

She said Sinclair’s legacy will also be felt throughout Canada and in Indigenous communities for years to come.

“He really did want people to learn about where they come from and the importance of having a connection to our community and our culture,” Daniels said.

“I believe that his legacy shows people what is really possible for us as Indigenous people.”

A memorial service for Murray Sinclair is planned for Sunday afternoon at the Canada Life Centre in downtown Winnipeg, and flags at the Legislative Building in Winnipeg and on Parliament Hill in Ottawa will stay lowered to half-staff until after Sunday’s memorial.

— Dave Baxter is a Local Journalism Initiative reporter who works out of the Winnipeg Sun. The Local Journalism Initiative is funded by the Government of Canada.

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