Government 'dragging their feet' in compensation talks, says man wrongfully convicted in 1973 Winnipeg murder

It's been over 50 years since Brian Anderson was convicted of a murder he didn't commit, almost two since his name was finally cleared and about 14 months since he sued all three levels of government in hopes of getting compensated for everything he lost — but after all that time, he says neither he nor his co-accused have seen a cent.

"They were quick to convict, but when it's time to find it the other way around, [they're] dragging their feet," Anderson said in an interview with his daughter at their home in Selkirk, Man.

Anderson was one of four young men from Pinaymootang First Nation in Manitoba's Interlake area convicted in the 1973 killing of Ting Fong Chan. Chan, a 40-year-old father of two, was stabbed and beaten to death near a downtown Winnipeg construction site as he walked home after a shift at the Beachcomber restaurant.

Anderson, Allan Woodhouse and brothers Clarence and Russell Woodhouse were rounded up by police largely because of eyewitness accounts following Chan's killing that mentioned Indigenous people.

All four ended up convicted in Chan's death based mostly on confessions in fluent English that police said they got from the young men — even though some of them barely spoke the language, and all said they had been forced or tricked into signing the admissions of guilt by officers who assaulted them.

The case was prosecuted by George Dangerfield, who was the Crown attorney in four other wrongful conviction cases.

Though concerns about the men's innocence were raised early on, it took until July 2023 before Anderson and Allan Woodhouse were finally exonerated, and until October 2024 for Clarence Woodhouse. Efforts to posthumously exonerate Russell Woodhouse, who died in 2011, are ongoing.

The three surviving men have since filed lawsuits seeking compensation from all three levels of government, who have denied fault in statements of defence. The compensation case is scheduled to be back in court for mediation later this month, with trial dates set for 2027.

Clarence Woodhouse, who filed his lawsuit in February, said though he's not as concerned about how long things are taking, being compensated for his wrongful conviction would mean a lot to him.

"I'm just waiting," said Woodhouse, now 73.

He hopes to eventually use compensation money to move out of his son's home and get his own place.

"I always wanted to … buy a house somewhere."

Meanwhile, Anderson said while it was "nice to hear" acknowledgments of his innocence and of the racism that marred everything from the police investigation to the men's trial, he feels he's had to go from proving he didn't kill anyone to proving he should be compensated for the time he lost, before he can truly move on with his life.

"They can say whatever they want," said Anderson, who spent about a decade in prison and was on parole from the 1980s until 2023. "The main thing here is that we want justice too, but we haven't seen it. It's talked about, but where is it?"