An Anishinaabe and member of the Peguis First Nation, born in 1951, and raised on the former St. Peters Indian Reserve north of Winnipeg. He dedicated his life to repairing and reshaping Canada’s relationship with Indigenous Peoples. His Ojibway name, Mazina Giizhik, means‘The One Who Speaks of Pictures in the Sky’, and this beautifully reflected his vision for a brighter, stronger future for Indigenous Peoples in Canada. In 1979, at the age of 28, he graduated from Law School at the University of Manitoba. In 1990, 11 years later, when appointed an Associate Chief Judge of the Provincial Court, he became the first Indigenous judge in Manitoba, and the second in Canada. In 1994 he was given a National Aboriginal Achievement Award and in 2017 the organization gave him a Lifetime Achievement Award. He was also awarded the Manitoba Bar Association’s Equality Award in 2000 and its Distinguished Service Award in 2016. He received honorary doctorates from 14 Canadian universities. He was appointed to the Senate in 2016. He served as co-chair of the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry of Manitoba after the murder of Helen Betty Osborne and the police shooting death of J.J. Harper. He also directed the complex Pediatric Cardiac Surgery Inquest into the deaths of 12 children at Winnipeg’s Health Sciences Centre. In leading the TRC he participated in hundreds of hearings and heard testimony from thousands of Residential School survivors. The final TRC report, with 94 Calls To Action, was released in 2015. In 2017 he and the other two commissioners received the Meritorious Service Cross for their work.

Murray Sinclair’s book entitled “WHO WE ARE -Four Questions For A Life And A Nation “ published 2024.