APTN National News
Murray Sinclair, the chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, has been appointed to the Senate by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Trudeau announced seven appointments to the Senate Friday, Sinclair among them.
Sinclair, a retired judge from Manitoba, led the TRC throughout its six-year journey into the darkest chapter of Canadian history.
The TRC was created as part of the settlement between Indian residential school survivors, Ottawa and the churches which ran the schools.
In many ways Sinclair became the face of reconciliation and is believed to have been the main author of the TRC’s preliminary and final reports, which included 94 calls to action.
The Trudeau government has stated it plans to implement all those calls to actions.
The other six Senators named to the Senate by Trudeau include Peter Harder, who led the Liberal transition team after the last federal election, André Pratte, an editorial writer with Montreal newspaper La Presse, Ratna Omidvar, Ryerson University’s executive director of the Global Diversity Exchange, Frances Lankin, a former Ontario NDP minister, Raymondé Gagne, a former president of Manitoba’s Universite de Saint-Boniface and Chantal Petitclerc, a Paralympic wheelchair racing champion.
