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

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.