Indigenous Injustice and Canada’s Legal System: The Death of Colten Boushie

Witness to Yesterday (The Champlain Society Podcast on Canadian History)

In this podcast episode, Nicole O’Byrne talks to Kent Roach about his book, Canadian Justice, Indigenous Injustice: The Gerald Stanley and Colten Boushie Case, published by McGill-Queen’s University Press in 2019. In August 2016, Colten Boushie, a twenty-two-year-old Cree man from Red Pheasant First Nation, was fatally shot on a Saskatchewan farm by white farmer Gerald Stanley. In a trial that bitterly divided Canadians, Stanley was acquitted of both murder and manslaughter by a jury in Battleford with no visible Indigenous representation. In Canadian Justice, Indigenous Injustice, Kent Roach critically reconstructs the Gerald Stanley/Colten Boushie case to examine how it may be a miscarriage of justice. Roach provides historical, legal, political, and sociological background to the case including misunderstandings over crime when Treaty 6 was negotiated. Kent Roach is a professor of law at the University of Toronto's Faculty of Law. A thoughtful and prolific author, he has worked on over 13 collections of essays, over a dozen books, and approximately 300 articles on a wide range of topics including criminal law, policing, terrorism, and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedom. Kent has won numerous research and teaching prizes and has been appointed a Member of the Order of Canada and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. This podcast is produced by Jessica Schmidt. Image Credit: Beinecke Library, https://www.flickr.com/photos/23948320@N05/5036265062 If you like our work, please consider supporting it: bit.ly/support_WTY. Your support contributes to the Champlain Society’s mission of opening new windows to directly explore and experience Canada’s past.