NDP leader Jagmeet Singh decries Boushie verdict, weighs up position on jury challenges
Stuart Thomson
Singh said he used peremptory challenges in his work as a defence lawyer but only because he ‘wanted to ensure that the jury was more diverse’
NDP leader Jagmeet Singh believes “justice was not served for Colten Boushie,” adding his voice to the chorus decrying Friday’s not-guilty verdict in a Saskatchewan murder trial that has polarized the country.
“We have a young Indigenous man that was killed. There’s some underlying serious problems we have to address in society,” Singh said at a press conference in Ottawa on Tuesday. “There is clearly racism, there are clearly barriers and injustice that exist for Indigenous communities across our country.”
Boushie was killed after he and four friends drove onto Gerald Stanley’s farm, about an hour west of Saskatoon. Stanley said he fired two warning shots from a semi-automatic handgun, before firing a third into the back of Boushie’s head. Stanley’s lawyers argued that he believed the gun was empty when he approached the vehicle and that his shooting Boushie was a “freak accident.”
Singh pinpointed the under-representation of Indigenous people on juries as the primary problem and said people lose faith in the justice system when it doesn’t “have representation of an entire community.”
“Justice is not something that is just delivered. There’s also an appearance of justice,” he said.
Members of Boushie’s family spoke to Ottawa media on Monday and had private meetings with Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Carolyn Bennett and Indigenous Services Minister Jane Philpott. They will meet with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould and Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale on Tuesday.
Singh said he is considering whether to support the abolition of peremptory challenges, a tool that allows both the Crown and the defence to reject potential jurors without any explanation. In the Boushie trial, the defence counsel blocked as many as five jurors who appeared to be Indigenous, leaving an all-white jury.
As a former defence lawyer, Singh said he had used peremptory challenges in his past work.
“In my case, I wanted to ensure that the jury was more diverse so I challenged folks that were not … I wanted to have more diversity on the jury,” said Singh.
“I wanted to have more people of colour and more people of diverse backgrounds, so I would have challenged someone who wasn’t diverse,” he said.
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