#JusticeForColten is a day of action to focus on acquittal of Gerald Stanley

Two Facebook Live speaker panels will discuss peremptory challenges and a book about colonial narratives

Helen Metella - 5 February 2021

#JusticeForColten; Day of Action; February 9, 2021; Colten Boushie; Indian Governments of Saskatchewan / Federation of Saskatchewan; Think Indigenous; UAlberta Native Students; Wahkohtowin Law and Governance Lodge

On the third anniversary of the acquittal of Gerald Stanley in the shooting death of Colten Boushie, the Wahkohtowin Law and Governance Lodge at the University of Alberta is collaborating with other Indigenous organizations to host a day of action.

#JusticeForColten day of action events on February 9 will consist of two panels run on Facebook Live late in the afternoon.

The first panel, Legal Consequences: The Elimination of Peremptory Challenges, features Indigenous judge Mary Ellen Turpin Lafond, Boushie family lawyer Eleanore Sunchild, lawyer Caitlyn Kasper, and Kent Roach, a professor of law from the University of Toronto.

This panel will discuss Bill C-75, which eliminated peremptory challenges and provided judges with greater discretionary power to reject a potential juror.

The first panel runs 4 to 5 PM MT, on Facebook @WeWillStandUpFilm

The second panel, Storying Violence: Unravelling Colonial Narratives in the Stanley Trial, features Gina Starblanket and Dallas Hunt, co-authors of a book by the same name. The authors and panellists Mylan Tootoosis, a PhD candidate in the Department of Indigenous Studies at the University of Saskatchewan, and Sheldon Wuttunee, former chief of the Red Pheasant Cree First Nation, will discuss the book's themes.

The book positions the death of Boushie and trial of Stanley in relation to Indigenous histories and experiences in Saskatchewan.

The second panel runs 2 to 5:30 PM MT, also on Facebook @WeWillStandUpFilm.

February 9 was also to have been the day of the sentencing hearing for Brayden Bushby, convicted of manslaughter for the murder of Barbara Kentner. In 2017, Bushby threw a trailer hitch at Kentner, resulting in her death five months after the incident.

Though the sentencing has been pushed back to February 17, the day of action is intended by its organizers to also focus attention on the Bushby trial and to support the Kentner family.

The organizers of the #JusticeForColten day of action include the Baptiste/Boushie family, the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations, Think Indigenous, the University of Alberta's Faculty of Native Studies and The Wahkohtowin Law and Governance Lodge.