Reconciliation suffered setback in Boushie case
But it’s also chance for Canada to reach out and change injustice, Max FineDay writes.
Reconciliation feels hollow today. It has since delivery of the verdict allowing Gerald Stanley to walk free after shooting 22-year-old Colten Boushie (whose name I won’t repeat to respect cultural protocol).
Two Fridays ago, around 7:30 p.m., is a moment people will speak about for decades. We’ll remember where we were, what we were doing.
I was sitting in a restaurant, with friends, discussing what the verdict would be. We all agreed that it couldn’t be less than manslaughter. When one at our table wondered what would happen if they didn’t convict, the rest scoffed. The evidence couldn’t be clearer, and the era of reconciliation had arrived.
As 7:30 approached we began checking our phones. Then the air was taken from my lungs.
Stunned, silenced, some excused themselves from the table to cry; the rest sat, holding back tears as best we could, waiting for someone to say … anything. I was angry, with myself as much as the jury. Angry that I allowed myself to believe justice would inevitably be served.
This flies in the face of the progress we, as a country, thought we were making on repairing the relationship. Pretending that the truth of history is deep in our past, pretending that reconciliation had arrived.
The hollow feeling stayed as a wave of Facebook comments flooded us. At best wanting to “play devil’s advocate,” at worst telling us that justice was served.
When the treaty was signed, the deal was that we would share the land, and live in harmony with respect for one another. But the verdict (and some comments after) reveal that the vision of peace and prosperity for both sides of the treaty is farther away than many of us understood.
This case demonstrated that the lives of Indigenous youth do not matter in this country.
Since the verdict, I’ve seen expressions of shame about Saskatchewan. But this isn’t a problem only for Saskatchewan. Racism against Indigenous people exists in Saskatchewan and elsewhere. It’s in our cities, governments, and in our unjust justice system.
What happened at 7:30 on that Friday has set us back. Reconciliation was wounded, gravely, in that moment. Many Indigenous people had their worst fears affirmed that in the last 150 years of Canada, nothing has changed. I will not accept that those 12 jurors get to be the referendum on reconciliation. That burden falls to each of us.
It’s important to recognize that in this era of reconciliation reports, conferences, speeches, and actions, somehow we’ve left out rural Canada. This tragedy shows a failure to embrace rural communities on the road of reconciliation. We must ask: “What will it take to fill town halls, school gymnasiums and coffee shops with opportunities for honest, informed conversations about the state of the relationship?”
Reconciliation will not be bestowed by any government, or solved through academic conferences alone. Reconciliation can only be achieved with local solutions, through speaking about our shared love for this place, the hard truths about our history, and how they’ve led us to inequality today. And through recognition of the humanity reflected in the person in front of you at the grocery store. Those of us engaged in this work have an obligation to help facilitate that conversation.
Canada desperately needs rural reconciliation. Rural Canadians live the closest to Indigenous communities, but they might as well be a world away.
I’ve seen compassion of Indigenous communities; I’ve heard stories from farmers about how their ancestors interacted with the First Nation community down the road, learning about the land, or being offered assistance.
Is it audacious to believe that rural communities can reconnect to those roots in our history, regain that relationship of mutual benefit? Maybe.
We can let these events renew our resolve to achieve reconciliation, this time including rural communities, this time involving rural peoples who share more than they realize.
This is not the death of reconciliation, but a call to help Indigenous communities bear this incredible weight, help dismantle systems that have supported injustice, help build something new.
Canadians, I ask you, how will you reconcile this?