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Calls for justice at rally outside legislative assembly

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Michael Hugall/NNSL photo

Between 50-100 community members attended a formal protest held outside the legislative assembly on Monday as the continuation of outrage over Friday's Saskatchewan jury verdict of farmer Gerald Stanley resumed across the territory.

Colten Boushie was killed in August of 2016 in North Battleford, Sask. Almost two-years later a jury, widely believed to have had no Indigenous members on it, acquitted Gerald Stanley after witness testimony placed Stanley at the scene of the shooting with a handgun.

Over the weekend and into Monday, Yellowknife continued reacting to the incident.

Gail Cyr, left speaks to a crowd outside of the Legislative Assembly of the Northwest Territories on Monday.
Michael Hugall /NNSL photo

“It goes to show there is certainly a lot of work that needs to be done when it comes to finding truth,” said Yellowknife North MLA Cory Vanthuyne at the protest. “Certainly it will become incumbent upon myself as a legislature to have a focus on those things that might affect our laws, regulations and policies that help drive our society.”

On Saturday, the activist group Denedeh Against the Dakota Access Pipeline held a traditional smudging ceremony outside of the Canada Post office however this protest, organized by Sandra Lockhart sought out to condemn the flaws in our judicial system and to educate people on the racism that still divides our country.

“The whole conversation that people need to have with each other is to appreciate and understand that racism in Canada is alive and well,” said spokeswoman Gail Cyr in front of the 50 person crowd on Monday. "It only takes a few good people to support and help and stop racism in its tracks.”

The call for judicial reform following the Colten Boushie case has rang throughout the country and according to Lockhart should result in a look at our correctional facilities.

“ All of the systems that law makers make and policies don't speak to who we are as Indigenous people,” said Lockhart. “It's been a dehumanizing of us as a people since pretty well since contact, as we mobilize more and more there is a conscious of white-supremacy and it's all over the world. Canada has been called on it a long time and the UN is starting to call people out too.”