Boushie death underlines tensions in rural areas
Indigenous hunters once welcome on farms note mood has shifted
Bev Poitras’s son spent years building relationships with rural property owners as he sought out places he could hunt.
But then something changed. Places where the First Nations man was once welcomed were no longer welcoming.
“He’s tried to make those relationships so the farmers are not upset …,” Poitras says. “Some of the places they used to go hunting, now the farmers won’t let them go hunt. Some of the farmers will even approach them when they’re out hunting in certain areas when they’ve got permission — not even from that farm, but (someone) from another farm will come across and say, ‘Hey, what are you guys doing here?’ So it’s becoming a little bit more toxic maybe.”
Looking back at the noted rift between Indigenous people and rural property owners, Poitras — director of justice for the File Hills Qu’Appelle Tribal Council — believes she can identify the turning point as the fatal shooting of 22-year-old Colten Boushie on a Biggar-area farm in August 2016.
“Even if it wasn’t (made) deeper, it’s pushed it out like a volcano,” she says. “The pressure was always there underneath and now it’s just exploded. It’s coming out. Or maybe it’s just one of those open ones where it’s just seeping out.”
During the past year, news stories took note of two very different positions on the issue. Farmers and other rural property owners expressed concerns — as they’ve done in the past — about the isolation and long police response times that lead to increased anxiety, and even outright fear, about rural crime.
The province responded by announcing a Protection and Response Team involving repurposing and expansion of policing powers while some rural property owners pushed for more relaxed property-defence laws.
First Nations groups, such as the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations (FSIN), took an opposing view, calling the province’s move more punitive than preventive.
Rick Ruddell, Law Foundation of Saskatchewan Chair in Police Studies at the University of Regina, studied in-depth the issue of rural crime for his book released this year, Policing Rural Canada: Police, Partners and Public Safety. He says that while much of the concern shared by rural property owners boils down to the more general, non-race-centred knowledge that help is a long time and distance away, racism can play a role in some cases as well.
“I think if you really get to the key of it, it’s that response time, because if people in a rural area knew they could pick up a phone and knew that someone would be there in five minutes, I think that people would feel probably quite a bit safer ...,” he says. “But there are areas of real high crime and some of those are centred around First Nations, so you get that community fear.”
Ruddell adds that fear can often result from a lack of knowledge and understanding about one’s neighbours, noting there are cases in which rural community leaders and residents have never actually gone to the nearby First Nation to talk to people there.
“So there are these sorts of divisions that people should maybe start talking (about) with each other a little bit more, and local politicians need to maybe be making some inroads, building some bridges with those Aboriginal communities,” he says. “So there’s maybe some areas there where people can take some action ... Maybe the best place is you need to start talking to your neighbours a little bit more. And if that means your neighbours are a First Nation, then you have to maybe get out there and show some leadership that way. And the First Nations can also build those bridges the other way too so maybe there’s room there for both sides to move to the middle a little bit.”
Ray Orb, president of the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities (SARM), agrees work needs to be done to bridge the gap that this past year’s events has exposed.
He says SARM has been working on speaking with various First Nations organizations, including the FSIN, as they look for ways to improve relationships between their members.
Meanwhile, he notes some individual rural municipalities have been successful in establishing good working relationships with their neighbouring First Nations. Others, he admits, have some work to do in that regard.
“Some of the RMs are really, really good at it,” he says. “Some of them have good relationships with First Nations bands. And some are still struggling. I guess we’re still trying to kind of educate our members as far as being able to work together, whether it be for economic development, it could be transportation, it could be roads and bridges and things like that.”
Orb says SARM intends to work on developing a strategy in the new year that will educate members on how to work together with their First Nations members.
Likewise, he hopes First Nations organizations and individual bands will meet them in the middle so the two can get better at working together — and in doing so erase some of the misconceptions that crop up around rural crime and race.
“We want to make sure that people treat each other with mutual respect,” he says. “That goes for First Nations and non-First Nations people. We think that we need to work together to foster economic development, to better not only our rural municipalities but also First Nations communities, and to be able to possibly share services wherever we can. But first of all, I think we need to sit down with our neighbours and to see where we can have common interests and work together.”
Poitras agrees education and relationships are crucial, and likely the key to tackling the racism she and others have both seen and experienced within this past, troubling year.
“It would help if they could work together, for sure,” she says. “If they were willing to open their minds and to sit down and talk and to have some of those discussions, I think even that would make a big difference. They don’t see them as a bogeyman anymore, and they’ll be able to have a good conversation ...
“And people have to not be scared to talk about it. Like bullying, right? Lots of people won’t talk about it because it’s going to get worse. I think that we have to talk about it. Even if it gets worse, at least then something can be done.”
Fourth in a seven-part series