The Stanley verdict, one year later
One year after the Stanley verdict, pain continues to be felt by the Boushie family and their supporters
After a jury filed into a North Battleford Queen’s Bench courtroom on a cold February evening last year and declared Gerald Stanley not guilty in the shooting death of Colten Boushie, rallies were held across Canada.
Hundreds of people decried systemic racism within the justice system and demanded change.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and then-justice minister Jody Wilson-Raybould took the unusual step of commenting on the trial’s outcome, issuing tweets about it on the night of the verdict.
“I can’t imagine the grief and sorrow the Boushie family is feeling tonight. Sending love to them,” read part of Trudeau’s tweet.
“My thoughts are with the family of Colton Boushie tonight. I truly feel your pain and I hear all of your voices. As a country we can and must do better — I am committed to working every day to ensure justice for all Canadians,” Wilson-Raybould tweeted.
Premier Scott Moe, who had won the Saskatchewan Party leadership race less than two weeks before the Feb. 9, 2018, verdict, addressed the media in the aftermath of the verdict, vowing that the province would have “difficult conversations” about racism.
As the one-year anniversary of the trial’s conclusion approached, the Saskatoon StarPhoenix spoke with community leaders, academics and key players in the trial about how they remember the verdict and what — if anything — they think has changed.
Q A year later, how do you look back at the verdict and the reaction that followed?
A I remember it being a shock because my family and I and many Indigenous people and allies across the country, we were hopeful for justice to take place. And to know that someone can grab a gun and shoot someone in the back of the head and be found innocent of any wrongdoing, it was a shock.
The least we were expecting was manslaughter or even a hung jury would have had a different statement to it, but to know that a person can shoot someone in the back of the head and be found completely guilt free of it, it was a shocker.
And it felt like it also contributed to the narrative across Canada that Indigenous people were expendable, that we weren’t worthy of justice, we could get shot in the head by a white man and nothing comes of it and it just, it hurt. It still hurts.
— Jade Tootoosis, Boushie’s cousin
A When the judge read comments about maintaining the level of respect that everybody had shown during the trial, I remember thinking, ‘Uh oh, it’s going to be an acquittal.’ And it was. Of course, I don’t think the judge knew, but I just think that it was a precursor to what was coming. The moment the verdict was read, it was like chaos, but at the same time it was like time stood still. So there were cries and tears and disbelief from the family. And I remember those moments right after with the family in the victim room and that’s something I’ll never forget. The moment of the verdict I will never forget as long as I live.
— Eleanore Sunchild, a Battleford-area lawyer who represented Boushie’s family
A I really tried to forget about what happened, but not to forget about my nephew. To me, I looked at it and saw murder … The prosecution could have done a better job in what they had done in presenting it to the jury and not only that, but the jury selection (which saw Stanley’s defence team use peremptory challenges to exclude visibly Indigenous prospective jurors) wasn’t right either.
This has happened so many times throughout history, of injustice.
And every First Nation person knew that what had happened, what had occurred to Colten, wasn’t right and that to shoot a young person behind the head and to be acquitted of it was not right and that’s what caused so much of an uproar, so much attention on this case.
My family was denied justice. That’s how I look at it. And we still remember Colten, we still feel for him, remember him, we miss him. I think about him, how we never received justice at all. It feels like we’re divided … First Nations against non-First Nations, against white people.
I remember the whole trial … it plays in my mind. I’ll never forget. It’s like I’ve been hurt and I can’t forget about what happened. But I try to move forward and try to find this forgiveness in my life to move forward so I don’t have to carry this burden on my back.
— Alvin Baptiste, Boushie’s uncle
A In the days that led to the verdict and followed the verdict, emotions were raw in our province. The tragic death of Colten Boushie changed the lives of two Saskatchewan families forever, a fact we must never forget.
After the trial, early in my tenure as premier, I called on our province to respect the process that took place and I urged people to continue an open, respectful dialogue that ensured all concerns were heard. I stressed that intolerant, hate-filled comments were not acceptable in Saskatchewan.
While there were times when the discussion wasn’t respectful, I was encouraged by the number of people who called for unity and understanding as we considered the issues arising from the trial. There was a feeling that we had to move forward in a spirit of generosity and empathy. There was also a consensus that all families in Saskatchewan needed to feel safe.
— Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe
A It almost seemed like everyone had their heels dug in with regard to a response. And it was almost instantaneous. I was trying to wrap my head around what was going on and everyone I spoke to had a very strong opinion one way or the other. I was actually on a sports trip with my daughter, so I heard about it in a parking lot or something like that.
I found it really interesting because people had their positions and people were marching in support of the family within days and then that GoFundMe page was raising hundreds of thousands of dollars to support Mr. Stanley, which is kind of a sign of where we’re at with society here in Saskatchewan.
We’ve got two sides here that really only very rarely connect with each other and I think that’s a problem in Saskatchewan. We don’t have a high level of social cohesion. The communities don’t necessarily understand or trust each other.
— James Daschuk, associate professor at the University of Regina
A In the aftermath of the trial, I met and talked with many people from both the Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities in Saskatoon and also from across the province. Two strong themes emerged: We have to come face to face with each other and be willing to have difficult conversations that address the racism and mistrust that were revealed in the aftermath of the shooting and the trial; and we need to find a way to come together and create the conditions so that this does not happen again to any family, to build a future where young people from all communities can succeed.
Over the course of the year, I have seen tremendous moments of hope, courageous acts of relationship building and honest conversations taking place in schools, community meetings, new partnerships, companies showing leadership in making meaningful change and in commitments to reconciliation made across the city. I also am aware that with some of the current national and provincial debates, there are tensions growing in parts of our communities and we can see increasingly polarized politics and online commentary.
But I believe that the young leaders from Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities who are having transformative conversations are setting a powerful new path. We have our work cut out for us to build common ground and a shared future. This is some of the most important work we can do for Saskatchewan. — Saskatoon Mayor Charlie Clark
A SARM (The Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities) has made a point of not directly commenting on the Gerald Stanley case during the trial and after the verdict was handed down. We’ve always stated we believe in the court system and still trust that juries will make the correct decisions from the facts that are presented to them.
However, I think the general feeling on rural crime is that there are still rural residents that are afraid for their own safety, certainly in certain parts of the province. We are supportive of the province’s creation of a protection and response team and of tabling a bill to change the provincial trespass law. And we’ve always said these changes will need some time to take effect and are hopeful that they will make a long-term difference.
SARM has been collaborating with the RCMP and has been actively reinvigorating the rural crime watch program throughout rural Saskatchewan and has struck a committee to create a provincial rural crime watch association. We believe rural people are simply asking for the general public’s respect for their families and for their property and to make sure rural Saskatchewan is a safer place for everyone.
— SARM president Ray Orb
Q Do you think anything has changed since the verdict?
A To be honest with you, I feel like nothing has changed since. We continue to see hatred spewed in the comment section of articles, anything to do with Indigenous people, anything to do with trespassing or even land rights. Indigenous people are disregarded. There’s so much racism and hatred spewed by settlers upon Indigenous people when it comes to anything. And it’s tough.
Whenever there’s an article with regard to an Indigenous person committing a crime, my brother’s name comes up. You read things like, ‘They got what they deserved just like that Boushie kid did,’ and it’s disgusting. I can’t understand. I just don’t understand why there’s so much hatred out there.
It’s even harder to hear my brother’s name come up in circumstances that he wasn’t there for. So that’s where we see that racism coming out, that colonial violence coming out, when an Indigenous person’s name is attached to every act of violence upon Indigenous people. And I think we have a lot to learn from that.
— Tootoosis
A Nothing and everything. I think that there’s still some deep-seated issues of racism, especially with the RCMP in this province, and that has to change.
But I also think that Indigenous people are more likely now to raise their voice when something is wrong, when they see an injustice occurring in their community against their family, against their loved ones and I believe that the Boushie family and the Baptiste family has a lot to do with not so much empowering people, but giving people a voice and showing them that it’s OK to speak up when they see an injustice and it’s OK to raise concerns because these are deep-seated issues within our province and within our country. — Sunchild
A Not that I’ve seen ... There’s a lot of people that are killing First Nation people and being acquitted and not being charged with anything (for example, shortly after Stanley’s trial, a jury found Raymond Cormier not guilty of second-degree murder in the death of 15-year-old Tina Fontaine, whose body was found in Winnipeg’s Red River. In November, Peter Khill was acquitted of murder after he killed a Six Nations man on his property in Hamilton, Ont., in what he said was an act of self-defence).
On Feb. 10 (the day after the verdict) we secretly met with Scott Moe and also Justice Minister (Don) Morgan. We met with them, we spoke with them, we spoke with the premier. And we told him what happened and he told us he was going to do whatever he can to look into this matter and see that there is justice and equality in this. And that one has never bothered even to do anything about it. Instead it became political. He did not want to stand on the farmers’ toes to lose votes or popularity on this matter.
— Baptiste
A Shortly after the verdict was delivered, minister of justice Don Morgan and I met with members of the Boushie family and many First Nations leaders to hear first-hand their concerns about the process leading up to and following the verdict. They expressed serious misgivings about our justice system, including concerns about jury selection criteria. Our government is committed to working with the First Nations leadership in Saskatchewan and the federal government to address these concerns.
Minister Morgan has worked with the former federal minister of justice, the Hon. Jody Wilson-Raybould, and his provincial counterparts on addressing these concerns at a national level. At the recent federal-provincial-territorial meeting of ministers of justice in November of 2018, justice ministers from across the country discussed the progress being made to address concerns regarding the Canadian justice system, including examining ways to improve the jury selection process in Canada.
Discussions also focused on restorative justice and the need to deal with overrepresentation of Indigenous people in our criminal justice system. Saskatchewan is interested in expanding restorative justice programs and culturally sensitive, therapeutic approaches that make a difference in the lives of victims, offenders, families and communities.
I know that Minister Morgan is committed to continuing this work with his new federal counterpart, the Hon. David Lametti. Additionally, Saskatchewan’s Ministry of Justice continues to review the overall management of jury selection and supports in the province to enhance broad participation in juries and address barriers to that participation.
— Moe
A Premier Moe had only been in his office for literally days and he said some very articulate words. One of the things he sort of mentioned was the rolling out of an anti-racism strategy, but after those words we haven’t really seen an anti-racism strategy come out. That was kind of in response to the moment and I guess people are still waiting for it.
There are people of good will and trying to do good work all over the province, but reconciliation is like a mirage off in the distance. We’ve got to get to justice before we can get to reconciliation. The racism or the racial divide is always there. It’s just whether it’s on the front burner or it’s on the back burner … The racial divide’s like a scar that just won’t heal in this province.
— Daschuk
A Unfortunately, I do not believe that anything has changed substantially since the verdict. Prior to the verdict, Saskatchewan’s population split upon racial and urban/rural lines about what the verdict should be; it appears to me that one year later the verdict and its aftermath have not brought all peoples in Saskatchewan closer together.
My hope had always been that Colten’s death and the subsequent trial of Mr. Stanley would shine a light on how far people in Saskatchewan were apart so that we could then all work on coming closer together. I haven’t seen evidence that the government of Saskatchewan and the RCMP are seriously interested in investing their resources and their time in mending their fractured relationship with the Indigenous community.
— Chris Murphy, a lawyer who represented Boushie’s family
A It’s a really complicated situation and one year later I don’t believe the situation has changed. I think that we have a long way to go. I think there have been good people examining what happened here and how it relates to their own personal frame of reference and livelihoods … Not to denigrate or underestimate the good intentions of people, there still remains a lot to be done.
If you look at the justice system broadly, there is no hope. Particularly, cuts by Conservative governments have really marginalized and put people in large numbers that are there for reasons of poverty and marginalization. So on a broader scale, there is no reason for hope if we look at how justice is meted out. But I think the hope comes from, maybe, individual acts of courage and maybe an awareness … about the true history of the country and their role in it to improve.
— Priscilla Settee, professor at the University of Saskatchewan’s department of Indigenous studies
A While we cannot speak directly to the incident or the investigation, we can speak about how the incident, in its totality, provided us, the Saskatchewan RCMP, with an opportunity to evolve. We strive to be an inclusive and trusted organization. Through community consultation with the people we serve, we have gathered and continue to gather information to help us improve the service we provide.
We are continually taking steps to increase community engagement with the goal of building stronger, safer communities. We continue to work to strengthen our relationships with Indigenous persons in Saskatchewan.
Currently, we are creating a reconciliation strategy, which will ensure we approach reconciliation in a way that is meaningful to the Indigenous communities we serve. At this time, the strategy is in the consultation phase and is expected to be in place within the next several months.
We continue to review and assess our response to issues, such as rural property crime, that are of concern to Saskatchewan citizens. We are always working to increase our capacity to deliver a targeted response to rural crime. We have implemented a property crime strategy to formalize our efforts in a variety of ways.
— Saskatchewan RCMP
These interviews and statements have been edited and condensed. The following individuals and groups were invited to participate in this article, but declined or did not respond: Scott Spencer (Gerald Stanley’s lawyer), Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations and the administrators of the now-defunct Farmers with Firearms Facebook group. — With files from Heather Persson and Alex MacPherson
We spoke with the premier. And we told him what happened and he told us he was going to do whatever he can to look into this matter.