Manitoba Metis Federation wants investigation into night hunting charges
WINNIPEG — Two indigenous groups say tensions over hunting continue to rise in Manitoba where they are driven in part by racially charged comments from Premier Brian Pallister.
The Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs and the Manitoba Metis Federation pointed Thursday to the recent acquittal of two Metis hunters on charges of illegal night hunting. The case fell through after the Crown withdrew an apparently forged confession, said Metis president David Chartrand, who linked it to recent tough-talk from Pallister on indigenous hunting.
Derek Nepinak, grand chief of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs, said conservation officers may be cutting corners after Pallister’s comments in recent months, including a speech in January in which he said indigenous night hunting was becoming a “race war.”
“The premier of Manitoba holds a moral responsibility to be very, very wary of inflammatory rhetoric, particularly when it deals with racialized rhetoric,” Nepinak said.