The
Retelling of Louis Riel's Story
An
article written by the Hon. David
Kilgour
Member
of Parliament for Edmonton Southeast
and
Secretary
of State (Asia-Pacific)
which
appeared in editorial section
of "The National Post"
on
Monday, September 28, 2002
Your
series last week on Louis Riel
did a service to readers about
the leader who was
founder of a province, member
of Parliament, an outlaw, an exile,
a victim of the hangman and a
man who has remained at the storm
centre of Canadian political history.
Louis Riel's conviction in Regina
of high treason raises many questions.
Did
a territorial magistrate's court
have jurisdiction to hear one
of the most important trials in
Canadian history? Should the presiding
judge, Hugh Richardson, as a member
of the anti-Catholic Orange Order,
not have disqualified himself
from the case? Why was the trial
held in Regina and not in Winnipeg?
Why were the six jurors selected
all English-speaking Protestants
who were thus obliged to depend
on interpreters for much of the
testimony? Why did Judge Richardson
select the names of the 36 prospective
jurors?
Once
convicted, Riel thanked the jury
for "clearing me of the stain
of insanity"
and spoke of being "hunted
like an elk for 15 years."
He then asked
for a commission to decide whether
he was the murderer of Thomas
Scott.
One of his jurors, Edwin Brooks,
spoke to this five decades later
in a newspaper interview: "We
tried Louis Riel for treason,
but he was hanged for the murder
of Thomas Scott." Richardson
sentenced him to be hanged.
A
flood of petitions and pleas for
clemency soon reached Ottawa from
many people at home and abroad.
Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald's
resolve only hardened as the political
parties throughout Canada split
bitterly over the issue. In an
interview, the 72-year-old Macdonald
said what are possibly the most
insensitive words ever uttered
by a Canadian prime minister:
"He shall hang though every
dog in Quebec bark in his favour."
He
also tried to persuade a concerned
governor-general that "this
North-West
outbreak was a mere domestic trouble,
and ought not to be
elevated
to the rank of a rebellion....
It never endangered the safety
of the state." This was an
outrageous comment on an incident
that his government
had publicly characterized as
a major rebellion and whose
leader
it prosecuted for high treason.
The
governor-general, nonetheless,
prevailed on him to appoint a
medical commission to determine
whether Riel was still sane. If
not, his insanity would provide
his government a sound reason
to exercise the royal prerogative
of mercy without disturbing the
court verdict. Macdonald shamelessly
manipulated the commission, admonishing
one commissioner to find Riel
sane and seriously distorting
the conclusion of the other that
Riel was "not an accountable
being."
Clearly
the decision not to show the same
mercy to Riel as to the other
convicted
rebellion prisoners was based
on political necessities. Macdonald
balanced his re-election prospects
in Ontario against those in Quebec
and decided he could better afford
to lose a few seats in Quebec
than to have English Canada turn
against him.
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