Rookie MLA discusses first days in legislature amid family tragedy

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This article was published 19/05/2016 (3453 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Judy Klassen spoke in the legislature for the first time Tuesday afternoon — and then went to the hospital to say goodbye to her brother Riley as he was taken off life support.

Wednesday, Klassen left her grieving extended family and rose from her seat in question period to push the Pallister government on building an all-weather road on the east side of Lake Winnipeg.

Friday, the rookie Liberal MLA for Kewatinook will take her brother home for the last time to St. Theresa Point First Nation for a three-day wake and funeral service.

She chose to talk about her family’s tragedy, Klassen said in an interview in the legislature Thursday morning, because for indigenous families from remote communities, there’s nothing unusual about what’s happened to her extended family; and because she’s putting the legislature on notice that she’ll spend the next four years trying to reduce the tragedies that plague so many Manitobans.

“We’re morbidly associated with death, it happens so often, we’re burying our people from preventable causes,” said Klassen, who emphasized that her brother’s death was preventable.

“His name was Christopher Riley Harper — we call him Riley. He passed away from the complications of diabetes…he was 44 years young,” Klassen said in an interview Thursday morning.

“I tried to bring him to my swearing-in; it was the one day he was busy with dialysis,” Klassen lamented. “Recently, he lost a leg to amputation, he was blind.”

Riley had been in Winnipeg for three years receiving treatment, his family of three children living in a hotel the whole time.

“The family had no choice but to come to the city,” Klassen said. One of Riley’s two daughters was his primary caregiver, until she took her own life three months ago.

No stranger to heartbreak

“My niece committed suicide — she saw no hope. That was in February,” said Klassen, who was then already campaigning across the vast northern riding.

Klassen said her family told her to return to the legislature after Riley’s death.

“I needed normalcy,” she said. “They told me to go, there’s still the fight. All of Kewatinook needs to know we’re representing their issues.”

Riley had been in Winnipeg for medical treatment for so long that he gave up his house at St. Theresa Point, because other families need decent housing, she said.

The legislature will be hearing a lot from her for the next four years about the lack of health care and other services throughout northern Manitoba, Klassen said

“One of the issues will be diabetes, and the family breakdowns from families being torn apart” and forced to live in city hotels for years, she said. “There’s no Ronald McDonald House for adults. We need more accessible units.

“In the throne speech, diabetes and nutrition weren’t mentioned,” said Klassen.

A Winnipeg service will be held for Riley Harper Thursday(tonight) evening at 7 p.m. at Eternal Grace Funeral Home, 1111 Logan Ave. at the corner of McPhillips Street.

nick.martin@freepress.mb.ca