Honourable senators, I rise today to join the congratulatory chorus celebrating our dear friend and colleague, the most Honourable Senator Murray Sinclair.

Hon. Senators: Hear, hear!

Senator Pate: This past Friday at the Indspire Awards, Senator Sinclair received the highest honour: a Lifetime Achievement Award in celebration of his life's work with and for Indigenous peoples throughout the country.

Senator Sinclair is also their very first double-award laureate, having received the Law & Justice Award in 1994.

Indspire is an Indigenous-led charity, the largest non- governmental source of funding for Indigenous education in Canada. Indspire provides educational resources and programs to Indigenous communities, including the awarding of more than 3,500 scholarships and bursaries in the past school year alone.

The Indspire Awards recognize Indigenous professionals and youth who demonstrate outstanding career achievement. They aim to promote self-esteem and pride for Indigenous communities, and provide outstanding role models for Indigenous youth.

Senator Sinclair is a loving husband, father, grandfather and friend to many. He has also devoted his life to supporting, mentoring and inspiring countless groups of individuals here and around the globe.

In addition to the traditional knowledge he learned from his grandparents, parents, kin and community, Senator Sinclair has achieved highest honours, set tracks and trailblazed throughout his remarkable career, first as a lawyer specializing in Aboriginal law, to his appointment as Manitoba's first — and Canada's second — Indigenous judge, to his leadership of the Manitoba justice inquiry and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and now, here in the Senate of Canada.

Senator Sinclair's unwavering commitment to addressing and remedying Canada's legacy of inequality and colonialism inspires each and every one of us every day, as treaty people, to have the courage to similarly demand change and to insist on justice, fairness and equality for all.

Thank you, Senator Sinclair. We all benefit and are the better because of your unwavering commitment, your brilliant intellect, your wonderful wit, but most particularly for your unparalleled courage in challenging Canada to improve its treatment of Indigenous peoples and your unwavering faith that, together, we, and all of Canada, can rise to this challenge.

While celebrating lifetime achievement inevitably asks us to reflect back, Senator Sinclair's focus is and always has been on the future. Reflecting on his extraordinary achievement of publishing the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's report on the residential school system, Senator Sinclair once remarked, "If you thought getting to the truth was hard, getting to reconciliation is going to be really hard."

Honourable senators, please join me in taking this opportunity to congratulate Senator Sinclair on his Indspire award for lifetime achievement and to thank him for his significant contributions to this nation.

Senator Sinclair, it is our incredible privilege – and, our collective responsibility -- to serve alongside you in this place, as we endeavor to work with you to continue your life’s work and honour your commitment to secure a better future for Indigenous Peoples, and therefore for all of us, for a re-imagined and reconciled Canada.

Thank you, merci, meegwetch!