11/02/2023
Radical Reconciliation. Episode: https://shows.acast.com/canadaland/episodes/651a22f3c8d4ce001199c1b1
In 2016, a 56 year old Saskatchewan farmer named Gerald Stanley shot an unarmed 22 year-old Indigenous trespasser named Coulten Boushie in the back of the head. Stanley was acquitted of murder in 2018 — and nobody was happy.
Indigenous people considered the verdict proof positive of racial bias in the courts and a tacit declaration of open season on Indigenous people, including hunters, who take their lives in their hands when they exercise their treaty rights to access land.
Meanwhile, rural settlers in Saskatchewan formed a facebook group called Farmers with Fi****ms to protest slow RCMP response times to what they considered a growing epidemic of rural crime. 8500 people joined, and the comment section was filled with anti-Indigenous rhetoric and vows to exercise vigilante justice on anyone who sets foot on their property.
How do these two seemingly irreconcilable groups… reconcile?
Some Saskatchewan farmers and Indigenous hunters are trying to figure that out. As you might expect, reconciliation isn’t always easy.
