‘He was an angel among people’

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This article was published 21/04/2018 (2726 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Sgt. Guy Roberts was sitting at the front desk of the Brandon Police Service station, covering the lunch hour while his colleagues went on their lunch break, when all of a sudden, in walked Percy Bercier talking faster than ever.

A constable at the time, Roberts eventually got the news out of Bercier, who had come in to report that he had found a $1,000 bill lying on the ground downtown.

“There’s just no way I could keep it and live with myself,” Bercier said, according to Roberts recalling the incident. “I had to bring it in and turn it in to you guys.”

Roberts took the bill from Bercier and about 20 minutes later, he got a call.

On the other line was a man in an absolute panic, who said he had lost one of his $1,000 bills, which he was going to pay one of his contractors with.

Having no doubt that it was the same one that Bercier found, Roberts told the man what had happened and got him his lost banknote.

“(Bercier) put the needs and well-being of somebody else ahead of himself,” Roberts said as he remembered that day more than 20 years ago. “That’s the kind of guy he was.”

Percy Herman Bercier, the fast-talking, iconic fixture of Brandon, best known for cleaning the streets of empty bottles and cans, died at the Brandon Regional Health Centre on March 21 after suffering a fall at the Brandon Community Welcome where he lived for more than 12 years. He was 65.

Known as the “Can Man,” Bercier’s friendly demeanour made him a rather famous figure in Brandon.

He would often race by with a fanny pack full of coins draped around his waist, stopping the odd time to ask for a cigarette, or to help someone pay their parking meter if it was running low.

Murray Holden, who used to own an autobody shop until about six years ago, said Bercier would often come by, arriving at 10 a.m. to chat about the latest downtown gossip or help out with a delivery.

Given how much Bercier walked throughout his life, Holden always pegged him as someone who would live forever.

“I didn’t believe it to start with,” he said, after learning of Bercier’s passing.

Bercier used to drop off his cans at the former Brandon Scrap Iron and Metals Recycling at First Street and Pacific Avenue, before moving to the Wesman Salvage yard in the city’s east end.

Steven Jones, the non-ferrous supervisor at Wesman Salvage, said Bercier was a delightful guy who brightened the room whenever he walked in. “He was always quite the character.”

Bercier was a frequent customer at the Robin’s Donuts on 10th Street, coming in at 6 a.m. each day and sometimes later in the day to check on the staff.

As he walked in, Bercier would throw out one of his usual catchphrases — “Where’s the boss?” he would say, or “money bags” if he thought someone had cash on them.

But most of the time, Bercier would come in to say “Hi” and grab a small one-in-one with a bismarck, and then sit at his usual spot by the window close to the TV.

“He was like a part of our family here,” franchise owner Suzie Rice said.

When word got out that Bercier had died, the news came hard for the staff at Robin’s. Today, a copy of Bercier’s obituary hangs above their work schedule.

“I’m still waiting for him to walk through the door,” Rice said.

Bercier was born in Roblin on June 2, 1952, to Herman and Myrtle Bercier. He was one of seven children, most of whom were fostered out to other families. For the first four years of his life, he lived with his grandmother and older sister Ruth Paul in Boggy Creek.

No one knows exactly how it happened, but for the first year of his life, Percy couldn’t move.

Paul said she could remember her grandmother turning Percy over on his side so she could feed him with a glass bottle, until one day, as she was coming down the stairs of her home, she saw one of Percy’s feet move.

From then on, Paul said that was the beginning of his moving feet. “It’s still hard to even believe he’s gone,” she said.

Following the death of her grandmother when she was nearly 10, Paul moved to live with her parents and Percy before leaving home at 15.

She said Percy was sent to a boy’s home in Winnipeg, but not much is known about him since then.

A Brandon Sun story about Percy Bercier from 1996 said he was committed to the Brandon Mental Health Centre as a teenage alcoholic who also suffered from epilepsy and a severe speech impediment.

Bercier, then 43, told The Sun at the time that he was over-drugged and had “too many bad experiences” at the hospital to ever want to go back.

He would live there for 18 years until he was discharged in 1986.

For the last 12 years, Bercier lived in suite 202 on the second floor of the Brandon Community Welcome building at the corner of 11th Street and Louise Avenue.

Bercier got his start there in the transitional employment program, doing casual jobs around the city, such as mowing lawns.

He moved into one of the Community Welcome’s newly renovated suites on New Year’s Eve 2005.

Sheryl Hayne-Cavers, director of the Brandon Community Welcome, said every morning, Bercier would make coffee for the building and check the doors in the evenings to make sure they were locked.

“He felt very safe here,” Hayne-Cavers said.

Even after a deadly robbery happened at the building in 2013, which led to the death of tenant Aaron Daniel Jardine, a close friend of Bercier’s, Hayne-Cavers said it didn’t affect how he felt about living there.

“He was very much a part of what we are at Community Welcome,” Hayne-Cavers said.

But in the last year, Bercier’s health started to decline. He wouldn’t go out as often to collect cans and had trouble eating, and just before Christmas, Bercier took a particularly bad fall and cut his head.

On March 4, as the house was getting ready for their weekly brunch, someone heard Bercier calling out from his suite.

When staff finally got inside, they found Bercier laying in the hallway by the front door after taking a fall the night before.

The staff called 911 and even as he was being taken out, Hayne-Cavers said Bercier was laughing and joking the entire time, saying “Sorry, boss” as he was carried away.

Bercier died two-and-a-half weeks later.

The exact cause of his death isn’t clear, but both staff at the Community Welcome and Bercier’s family say he developed pneumonia while in hospital.

Most of Percy’s belongings were given to family and the rest will either be given to the other tenants or put up for sale later this summer.

A month after his death, his loss is still being felt by the people at Community Welcome. “He was definitely a kindred spirit to me,” Hayne-Cavers said.

Up to 200 people are believed to paid their respects at Bercier’s funeral.

Paul said it was comforting to know how many people had come to honour her brother, but she feels there still wasn’t enough time for their family to bond after the years they spent apart.

In 1992, the seven Bercier siblings finally got together for a reunion at Paul’s home in Rapid City.

Percy’s sister, Norma Rose Bercier, who lives in Calgary, said it became clear to her that Percy loved his family, especially his sisters.

“He was an angel among people,” she said. “His soul was so good.”

When Paul moved to Alberta in 2002, she said Percy would call her every day to make sure she was OK and to tell her he loved her.

“I’m so scared to lose you,” he would say. “I don’t want you to die on me.”

Norma would get similar calls as well. “I have no regrets,” she said. “The only thing I wish for is we have more time together.”

Percy Bercier was buried alongside his father in San Clara. Inside his coffin, Percy was laid to rest with a feather courtesy of his sister Norma, a fanny pack, his black “Furious 7” hat and an empty Sprite can.

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