Winnipeg lawyer Brad Regehr’s fondest memory of the late Anishinaabe judge and senator Murray Sinclair is only tangentially related to his legal career.

In 2007, Regehr’s partner had recently given birth to their youngest child. Sinclair, who Regehr said was interested in acting, convinced Regehr and his partner to participate in the Manitoba Bar Association’s production of Shakespeare’s play. A Midsummer Night’s Dreamas part of the association’s annual Lawyers Play fundraiser.

To convince the couple, Sinclair volunteered to hold their baby during rehearsals and while the couple performed in the opening scene of the play.

“And he was just sitting there, leaning back with Sanjay on his shoulder. The madness behind the stage during the play, and he was just this island of calm, and Sanjay, he never made a sound when he was on Murray’s shoulder,” Regehr said in an interview.

Sinclair, former senator and judge, and chief commissioner of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, died in a Winnipeg hospital Monday, his family said in a statement. He was 73 years old.

Regehr, a member of the Peter Ballantyne Cree Nation in Saskatchewan, was the first Indigenous president of the Manitoba Bar Association and the Canadian Bar Association.

He remembers meeting Sinclair in 1993, when Regehr was a law student. He had been assigned to observe the court and one of his classmates was Sinclair’s nephew, Kelly Moar, now a provincial court judge.

Moar offered to introduce Regehr to Sinclair, who took the students to lunch.

“There was a group of first-year law students and we’re going to lunch with Murray,” he said.

“We all knew who he was from his work on the Indigenous justice inquiry here in Manitoba, so it was like we were dating this rock star judge.”

Sinclair was the first Indigenous person appointed to the bench in Manitoba and the second in Canada. As commissioner of the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry, which delivered its final report in 1991, he examined the relationship between Aboriginal people and the justice system.

‘One of the giants of our time,’ says former chief justice

Through the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Sinclair “integrated ideas about reconciliation and the history of residential schools into the Canadian consciousness,” said Glenn Joyal, chief justice of the Court of King’s Bench of Manitoba.

Former Manitoba Provincial Court Chief Justice Raymond Wyant said he first met Sinclair when they were young lawyers in the 1980s.

“I think he will be remembered … as one of the most important people in the history of this country,” Wyant said.

Chief Justice Ryan Rolston remembers being a lawyer and arguing cases before Sinclair when he sat in provincial court. Sinclair showed his humanity during the sentencing hearings, he said.

“He was so humble and really took the time to talk to the person as a human being,” Rolston said.

Wyant says he and Sinclair stayed in touch throughout their careers, often meeting at airports. Although they had known each other for years, Wyant says Sinclair continued to impress him.

“I’m talking to Murray Sinclair, who is really…probably one of the giants of our time. And I’m here, having the privilege of knowing him as a friend and talking to him,” Wyant said.

“This is a huge loss for all of us.”