Cathy Merrick, Advocate for Indigenous People in Canada, Dies at 63

Cathy Merrick, a towering figure in the fight for Indigenous rights in Canada and the first woman to be elected grand chief of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs, representing 63 First Nations, died on Sept. 6 in Winnipeg, the provincial capital. She was 63.

The Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs announced her death in a statement.

Ms. Merrick died while doing what she had dedicated her life to: advocating for Indigenous people. She had just attended the trial of a corrections officer who had been charged in the death of an Indigenous inmate. The man had been acquitted, and Ms. Merrick was standing on the courthouse steps expressing her disappointment to the news media when she suddenly collapsed.

She was taken to nearby St. Boniface hospital, where she was declared dead. The cause was not immediately known, and an autopsy was to be performed.

Ms. Merrick’s death was met with deep grief across Canada. Hundreds attended her wake as she lay in state last week at the Manitoba Legislative Building, only the sixth person and the first woman ever to receive that honor.

“Grand Chief Cathy Merrick was a relentless and incredibly effective advocate for First Nations peoples, especially for those most vulnerable,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada said in a statement.

Catherine Ann McKay, whose traditional Cree name was Kameekosit Ispokanee Iskwew, was born on May 31, 1961, at Cross Lake, the English name for the Pimicikamak Cree Nation, in northern Manitoba. She was the adopted daughter of Hazel and Thomas Spence. Her mother was a nurse, her father a carpenter.