Senseless, tragic and disturbing: words that rush to mind upon hearing the news of last week’s killing of Colten Boushie. A 22-year-old resident of the Red Pheasant First Nation in western Canada, Boushie was shot to death after he and four other Indigenous young people drove onto the property of 54-year-old, non-Indigenous farmer Gerald Stanley in hopes of getting help with a flat tire.
What happened next is still under investigation, but that hasn’t stopped some from drawing and sharing their own hurtful and hateful conclusions via social media. Our guests this week both hail from Saskatchewan: Tasha Hubbard is a documentarian and assistant professor of English at the University of Saskatchewan; Chris Andersen is interim dean at the University of Alberta’s faculty of Native Studies. They share their thoughts as to what Boushie's death—and its contentious aftermath—might tell us about the state of Indigenous/non-Indigenous relations in that province and beyond. // Our theme: 'nesting' by Birocratic.