SASKATOON

Boushie's family meets federal ministers after acquittal in murder trial

The Canadian Press Published Monday, February 12, 2018 11:14AM CST

Krissa Baptiste holds a picture of her cousin of Colten Boushie, during a lunch recess on the day of closing arguments in the trial of Gerald Stanley, the farmer accused of killing 22-year-old Indigenous man Colten Boushie, in Battleford, Sask. on Thursday, February 8, 2018. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Liam Richards

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OTTAWA - Colten Boushie's family is in Ottawa to meet federal ministers after a Saskatchewan farmer accused of killing him was acquitted late last week.

A jury delivered a not-guilty verdict on Friday for Gerald Stanley in the 2016 killing of Boushie, a 22-year-old member of the Red Pheasant First Nation.

Boushie's relatives are scheduled to meet Indigenous Relations Minister Jane Philpott and Indigenous Services Minister Carolyn Bennett today, as well as Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale and Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould on Tuesday.

Wilson-Raybould, who is Canada's first Indigenous justice minister, tweeted Saturday in the wake of the Stanley verdict that Canada "can and must do better."

Aboriginal Sen. Murray Sinclair posted a poem online saying he grieves for First Nations youth "who now see no hope," and says Indigenous Canadians have been grieving for so long it has become part of their DNA.

Kevin Seesequasis, a councillor of the Cree Nation in Saskatchewan, says Indigenous and non-Indigenous residents of Saskatchewan alike are reeling from what he describes as a horrible failure of the criminal justice system.