There was an information picket on Birch Avenue for Colten Boushie, a 22-year-old First Nations man shot and killed in Battleford, Saskatchewan.
It was quiet because of the cold weather, says Rita Giesbrecht.
“It was one of those things that the people involved felt needed to be done and the main thing was to do it in solidarity with similar actions across the country.”
Giesbrecht says it was important to be done because Colten’s story was one that came to the inevitable conclusion based on the whole history in the country of how the settler country of Canada has affected First Nations.
“It’s a microcosm of the macrocosm.”
It’s the type of situation where the integration between these two cultures comes to point, she says.
“It’s important to put a magnifying lens on that and to own all of the circumstances that led up to it and the inevitability of it. If we don’t pay attention to it it’s a lost opportunity.”
Although it happened in Saskatchewan, we don’t have to look very far from home in any rural part of Canada to see similar things worked out, says Giesbrecht.
“Our settlement history is not that far away.”