The Chronicle Herald (Provincial)
New Saskatchewan MLA moving forward after fall of triumph and tragedy
REGINA — The day he took his oath of office, newly minted Mladerek 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’ teenaged 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 COVID19 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. “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.
While Meyers, the selfdescribed “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.”