SASKATOON — After nearly five a half years serving as the province’s Chief Coroner, Clive Weighill is now onto his next grand adventure — retirement.
Weighill wrapped his time in the position with the culmination of the coroner’s inquest into the death of Myles Sanderson in Saskatoon recently and was thanked by the James Smith Cree Nation community for his efforts.
“On behalf of us at James Smith, we’d like to present to Clive a gift he can take home,” said Eddie Head, justice and policing director at JSCN and Sanderson’s uncle. Head presented Weighill with a Jerry Whitehead canvas (She Carries the Light) after the inquest broke for the morning on Feb. 29, joking “So you can remember us when you’re sitting back in the recliner!”
A gracious Weighill humbly accepted the gift, describing the long journey both the Melfort and Saskatoon coroner’s inquests held for all involved.
“It’s been my honour to be Chief Coroner for the province and to work with the leadership at the First Nation, and work with Eddie especially, and to work with the families,” Weighill said. “I appreciate the families and their questions of the witnesses. I hope that helped bring some of the truths out.”
He pointed to signs of healing from the tragedy and a community coming together—visible throughout the combined month of proceedings.
“I truly believe if nothing else comes out of these inquests, that it was a stepping stone to bring families together again on that First Nation,” Weighill remarked. “I saw people hugging, I saw people talking to each other that previously, before the inquests, would not be. I think it brought the community together.”
He went on to recognize members of coroner’s counsel and from the federal Ministry of justice who worked tirelessly to make the proceedings a reality. Between the two inquests, 44 witnesses provided testimony with a total of 33 recommendations arising from the two separate events.
“It certainly was a team effort by everybody that worked on this,” Weighill noted. “I also want to thank the media. The media has been so respectful of families. I think they’ve done some really good, balanced reporting on what’s happened here and I think the people right across our nation that were interested in this found out exactly what happened because of the media input and the reporting that’s happened.
“On behalf of myself and the people in the corner service,” he continued, “thank you very much.”
Weighill came to the role of chief coroner back in August 2018 after decades in the policing world that noted him in positions such as deputy chief of police with the Regina Police Service and later chief of police with the Saskatoon Police Service.
No replacement for the chief coroner position has been found yet according to the Saskatchewan Coroner’s Service.
