When I first heard the not the guilty verdict for Raymond Courmier in the Tina Fontaine murder case, I felt punched in the gut?again?just like I did after the Colten Boushie verdict. My mind was racing all over the place; my heart felt bruised and stomped on the ground. Tina Fontaine was 15,  just like my daughter, Leenah.

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My daughter is at risk because she's Aboriginal and female My daughter was with me when I read the news that a jury had found Courmier not guilty of second-degree murder. I was struggling to digest how they could justify excusing an old man with a violent history who had bragged about raping Fontaine and whose friends had linked him with the comforter her body was wrapped in and weighted down with rocks before she was tossed into the Red River near Winnipeg, Manitoba.  There had even been a call from Fontaine to 911, in which she reported Courmier stealing a truck, shortly before her disappearance. But this of course was all circumstantial evidence. It always is when non-Indigenous people are on trial in relation to the death of young Indigenous people. I tried not to say anything to Leenah; I didn’t want to burden her. But she could sense something was wrong. She could see me pacing, losing my concentration on my sc...