Justice Wright got it right

Page 5

October saw the public release of the final report of the commission of inquiry into the death of 17-year-old Neil Stonechild. This young man was found frozen to death in an industrial part of Saskatoon in 1990 after last being seen by his friend Jason Roy in the back of a police car screaming in fear for his life.

We've seen a lot of inquiry reports, but never before have we seen such strong language as that used by Mr. Justice David Wright, the inquiry commissioner, a man clearly disturbed and disgusted by what he heard and saw over weeks of testimony. Mr. Justice Wright got it right. Now it remains to be seen if it will matter.

The words of the Saskatoon police chief, the Saskatoon mayor and the Saskatchewan justice minister-new arrivals all with no direct connection to Stonechild's death and very little chance of realizing personal embarrassment-were all suitably contrite after the report's release. What happened in Saskatoon was inhumane and unforgivable, they said. People should be alarmed and appalled. We agree.

Cops lied to protect their careers, their pensions and their brothers in blue, and the sad fact of the Stonechild inquiry is that unless some action is taken, cops will continue to do bad things to poor, marginalized people who don't have the influence to make trouble.

There wasn't much news in what came out of the Stonechild report except that a well-to-do white man in a very red-necked town finally said, "Enough." Congratulations to him. But as distinguished a gentleman as Justice Wright is, he shouldn't get the credit for ripping the lid off of police malfeasance in Saskatoon. That honor goes first and foremost to Stella Bignell and her family.

When we met Mrs. Bignell at the inquiry last spring, she was returning from the trap-line to attend the hearing into the death of her young son who would have been 30 years old if he had lived. She is a woman with the values of a people who live close to the earth who believe in the inevitable triumph of natural justice; the essential Native mother driven by a deep love for a son who was taken too soon. She is a role model who would probably be embarrassed by the idea.

But Mrs. Bignall is a role model, nonetheless, an example to us all. We hope some day that the remarkable things she's accomplished will bring her some measure of peace. We hope that her efforts will mean that many other mothers will not have to endure what she had to endure over the last 14 years, and we hope that that thought comforts her.

And there are others who need to be recognized. People have forgotten that it was Darrell Night's courage that made the Stonechild inquiry possible. He survived one of the Saskatoon Police Services' "starlight cruises" out to the Queen Elizabeth power plant in 2002 and made those cops pay with their careers and a little time behind bars. Had he remained silent, like so many others had done, we may never have learned some of the truth of Neil's final hours.

Jason Roy also deserves some measure of credit here. He lived in fear for many months in Saskatoon, afraid of the very people you're supposed to call and trust when you're living in fear. But he spoke out for his friend and made his own contribution to justice, never wavering in the testimony of what he saw that night.

And we're going to out on a limb and say that Saskatoon Police Chief Russell Sabo belongs on the honor roll as well. Despite being an outsider who was under great internal pressure to maintain the blue wall, we have observed that any time it was proved that a cop under his command had brought discredit to the uniform Sabo acted quickly to remove the offender from the force. We think there's a good chance that this cop will deliver on his promises to make Saskatoon a better place to live.

For police officers, politicians and bureaucrats in other jurisdictions across Canada, we hope you learn from this sad episode and actively work to stop the hatred and ignoran that causes the horrors that have played out in Saskatoon.

The greatest accomplishment Justice Wright could ever achieve would be to scare people in authority in this country just enough that this will be the very last inquiry that would need to be held into the wrongful death of a Native person who died at the hands of cops.