Reconciliation impossible where lives are expendable

Unspeakable rage. That’s what I, and Indigenous youth across the country, felt when the jury delivered a not-guilty verdict in the case of Gerald Stanley, who killed 22-year-old Colten Boushie.

Then we felt unspeakable sadness for the verdict that allowed 15-year-old Tina Fontaine, whose body was weighted down with rocks and thrown into a river, to go without justice.

Canada has shown, twice within the last month, that Indigenous youth cannot expect a reasonable level of justice. We cannot expect that justice is blind, that juries are capable of rendering it.

Canadian complacency is shown in the continued colonialism that cannot be hidden. These two verdicts are just the latest iterations of it.

Indigenous communities have endured these two cases, back to back, wishing for justice but knowing that raised expectations could lead to a shattering disappointment. As expected, they have left devastation.

Through the verdicts in these two trials, Canada has clearly reinforced feelings of hopelessness. These decisions show young Indigenous people, the fastestgrowing demographic in the country, that their lives simply aren’t valued as much as other Canadians.

What’s worse is all that came after the verdicts. Canadians flooded comments sections, spaces on social media, and told Indigenous youth that this is justice.

“Colten Boushie shouldn’t have been in Gerald Stanley’s yard.”

“Tina Fontaine was a teen looking for trouble, and she found it.”

These statements show that Canada is not the caricature of politeness, justice, and virtue that it wants so desperately to believe it is.

Our justice system is anything but just. Our neighbours blame children for their own violent deaths.

These verdicts have interrupted the rhetoric of reconciliation, only to reveal that we aren’t as far along as we might like to think. A reminder that restoring the relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous youth was going to take more than conferences, reports, and words.

Indigenous youth suicide rates are stag- gering compared to Canadian youth, between 6 and 40 times the national average. Read that again; allow it to sink in. The vast majority of Canadians reading this now have heard the dire statistics about Indigenous youth, shrugged, and closed their eyes to it.

A civilized nation would see this hopelessness in youth as a clear sign that things aren’t working the way they should, an emergency that must be dealt with urgently. It would see through a lens that connects dots of injustice to the systems that exist. It would ask questions about how institutions might be responsible for these devastating statistics.

But what does Canada do? Reinforces the idea that young Indigenous lives are not valued.

Reconciliation has to mean that Canada acknowledges that its treatment of Indigenous peoples has been unacceptable.

But these verdicts, and the following public discourse, have clearly shown Indigenous youth over the past weeks that Canada hasn’t changed.

Canada is akin to the abusive partner, expecting Indigenous youth to continu- ally forgive its bad behaviour, to reconcile, forgive the violence inflicted on their bodies.

This is a message to Canada: young people will not reconcile with a reality where our lives are expendable.

Young people will not reconcile with a nation that continually fails us.

Young people will not reconcile without seeing colonial systems dismantled and replaced with ones that purposely seek justice for Indigenous young people.

To every Indigenous youth, I say: I value your life, you come from proud people, you are loved.

To Canada, I say: Witness this, you have an unjust nation.

To Canada, I say: Your systems have failed us. Help us to build new ones.

But for now, Canada, witness us, a nation unreconciled.

Justice for Tina Fontaine, justice for Colten Boushie, justice for all Indigenous youth.