New members tapped for residential school commission: report

Justice Murray Sinclair, an aboriginal judge in Manitoba, is expected to be appointed the new chairman of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission for residential schools, according to a report.

Marie Wilson, a senior executive with the NWT workers compensation commission, and Wilton Littlechild, Alberta regional chief for the Assembly of First Nations, are also expected to be appointed commissioners, the Globe and Mail reported Thursday.

Sinclair, Canada's second aboriginal judge, became Manitoba's first aboriginal associate chief justice in 1988.

Wilson, a former regional director of CBC North, would neither confirm nor deny the report. She is married to former N.W.T. premier Steven Kakfwi.

Seven months ago, Justice Harry LaForme, who was initially selected to be chairman of the commission, resigned. LaForme wrote that the commission was on the verge of paralysis and doomed to failure.

He said an "incurable problem" was that the other two commissioners refused to accept his authority as chairman and were disrespectful. Those two commissioners, who denied the charges, later resigned.

The commission was created as the result of the court-approved Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement, negotiated in 2006 among former students, churches, the federal government, the Assembly of First Nations and other aboriginal organizations.

The commission, which was established in June with the aim of completing its work in five years, is not charged with determining innocence or guilt but with creating a historical account of the residential schools, helping people to heal and encouraging reconciliation.