Margaret Commodore, Yukon's trailblazing justice minister, dies at 93

Margaret Commodore, who died June 1 at the age of 93, was a whirlwind of energy throughout a long, remarkable life. Trailblazing a political path in the Yukon as the first Indigenous person to serve as justice minister anywhere in Canada, she broke numerous gender and racial barriers along the way.

As a girl, she had attempted weekend escapes from residential school by scrambling down knotted sheets from an upper-floor window. As a young woman, she worked as a certified practical nurse, folding linen at a First Nations tuberculosis hospital with such speed and wizardry that people stopped to watch. She played softball as an all-star, striking out batters and drawing cabs from her games to the hospital when unexpected surgeries came up.

Undeterred by her dearth of formal schooling, Commodore became a prominent leader of the Yukon Association of Non-Status Indians, which she helped form, while fighting for years to get her own status back. She was appointed a full-time justice of the peace and quickly became one of the Yukon's senior JPs, eventually serving as executive secretary to the Yukon Judicial Council. She followed this with 14 years as a high-profile elected member of the territorial legislature, including six years in cabinet marked by numerous groundbreaking initiatives to improve the lot of the territory's Indigenous people.

Yet for many years, a dark chapter from Commodore's early life lay buried in denial. In her late 50s, she sensed something was wrong. As she grappled with rising, unexplained anger, the long-hidden truth emerged, triggered by a chance viewing of paintings by Métis artist Jim Logan. "Every one reminded me of residential school," she recounted. "I went back to the office, turned my chair to the wall, and I started crying. The tears flowed for a very long time. That's when I realized that what happened to me was not normal. I had been in denial."

During her time at residential school, she had been sexually abused. After intensive therapy, Commodore became the first witness to testify at the Truth and Reconciliation hearings in Vancouver in 2013. She wept repeatedly, particularly when she apologized to her daughters, who were hearing their mother's revelations for the first time. "You keep it hidden for so long. You don't deal with it. Because I was taken away to residential school, no one had ever taught me to be a parent." She concluded: "I won't apologize for my tears, because I deserve them."