MEYERS: HEARTACHE & TRIUMPH
MLA wins while mourning daughter
The day he took his oath of office, newly minted MLA Derek Meyers held the past in his hands as he focused on the future.
Mere days before the official start to this fall's provincial election campaign, Meyers's teenage daughter waged a battle of her own.
Under the weight of anxiety and other mental health issues — all in the midst of a societal shift wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic — Teigha died by suicide at the age of 17.
It was Sept. 20.
“When I went to bed that night I didn't have any inkling that was still in the cards,” Meyers said. “I had thought that maybe we had gotten past the point of her taking things into her own hands.”
Nine days after Teigha's death, the election writ dropped and days later Meyers hit the campaign trail on behalf of the Saskatchewan Party.
“Just think about the pressure on the man,” said Tina Beaudry-mellor, a former Saskatchewan Party cabinet minister and longtime friend of Meyers's. “He's lost a child, he's in the middle of an election campaign and his former partner and the mother of Teigha is struggling.
“He's got a wife at home who is pregnant and extremely uncomfortable, with a toddler. He's trying to hold it all together and be the man. I was really worried that he would actually collapse after the election and when the baby was born.”
On Nov. 3, eight days after he was elected, Meyers and his partner, Laurie Ireland, welcomed their newborn daughter Eisley.
The couple ensured the girls would always have a connection. Eisley and Teigha share a middle name: Faith.
“We wanted a part of her to live on through her sister,” Meyers said. “We also wanted her sister to feel a connection to Teigha without having to bear the weight that she's a replacement, because that's not it. We definitely felt it was important for her.”
Between the loss of one life and welcoming another, Meyers also had an election race to run.
“Teigha never wanted to be the focus of anything, even when she'd have a really great soccer game,” Meyers, 43, said. “She didn't want that spotlight so I didn't want to necessarily make it about her on the campaign trail.
“There'll be a time and there'll be a place for that, but she would want to help others. The best way
I thought of doing that was to go out and win. Then I could be one the voices in the government for those people who are struggling with mental illness.”
Meyers often heard condolences from his fellow politicians, friends and pending constituents.
“All I could think about is, `Don't be sorry for me, be sorry for that girl who had to endure whatever it was she was enduring for that time,'” Meyers said. “We saw that she struggled with coping and she battled some drug issues later on. She was trying to make a clean break and we were trying to help her. She was going to move, go to school elsewhere just to try and break that cycle.
“In the end, the weight was more than she could bear.”
Teigha was a standout in soccer and badminton, a good student, and had a solid family behind her.
“She's literally a cliché of ` What could have been so bad?' ” said Meyers, who also has two sons, Dayn Meyers, 12, and Sebastian Ireland-meyers, 4.
“Teigha struggled with anxiety to
the point that it was a real battle. As her teen years came on with ... I don't know if we'll ever know. She certainly was in front of doctors, psychologists and psychiatrists, diagnosed with maybe some bipolar and some depression and the anxiety. It was a very trying time for her.”
It wasn't unfamiliar territory. Meyers was a volunteer with the Canadian Mental Health Association. With the video production company he headed, Meyers even produced videos for the association.
While Meyers, the self-described “new guy,” had no input into the creation of a new Ministry of Mental Health and Addictions, he's optimistic about its work.
“It's a massive issue and it can be anybody,” he says, noting people on the outside looking in wondered how Teigha could have been affected like she was. “There's a kid that had everything ... and then, it's not about having everything. It's not how it is. It's about the weight that's on them.
“We would have moved heaven and earth for her, and I think she knew that.”
Beaudry-mellor recalled how the Saskatchewan Party rallied around Meyers when the writ was dropped, even knocking on 1,500 doors in the early days after Teigha's death.
“It was to just give him some breathing room because he would have been out there and I often had to say to him, `Are you looking after yourself?' ” Beaudry-mellor said. “He said to me, `I need to keep going and to keep moving or I'm going to be in trouble.' I thought there was a person with a lot of heart.”
Meyers's background helped him keep moving. Raised on a farm near Midale, he comes from a family that is involved in oil exploration and production.
He initially started out in the oilfields before becoming a geologist, but eventually moved into sports. He became a household name in Regina as a sports reporter and anchor with Global TV for nearly 10 years.
In 2015, he stepped aside as a sports reporter to focus on his growing and active family. He also concentrated on his production company while pondering moving into the political realm.
It wasn't a seamless transition to politics. Meyers put his name forward as the Saskatchewan Party's nominee for the Regina Northeast constituency in 2019. However, Gary Grewal won the nomination and he would go on to win the Northeast constituency in the 2020 provincial election.
Meyers and his election team decided to make another run, this time in Walsh Acres, where his nomination was acclaimed.
On Oct. 26, he won his seat in the legislature with 3,148 votes, 606 more than the NDP'S Kelly Hardy.
Beaudry-mellor met Meyers through her connection as an analyst with Global's election coverage before she, too, became an MLA. They became friends and she also mentored Meyers as he navigated the unfamiliar world of politics.
“I think he's going to be one to watch,” she said. “I have high hopes for him as a Regina MLA and eventually as a minister because we need good strong voices in the city. ... He'll be a strong advocate for suicide (prevention) and for mental wellness, and that is very important as well.”
When Meyers was officially sworn in on Nov. 9, he carried in his hands the New Testament that Teigha had with her for her first communion.
“She's here every day with me and I've always said, `She's my light' and she will continue to be,” Meyers said. “She's going to be the light for many others because her legacy will hopefully affect somebody out there.”