Other than the major flaw of killing one person, Louis Riel did some really great work. His work set the stage for the Manitoba Act which is how Manitoba became a Canadian Province. They kept things surprisingly non-violent, again, other than Tom Scott.
It makes perfect sense for him to be the “honorary first Premier” some of our current premiers have killed people, DUI Hank Hill of SK for example.
That is not my reading of the history. My understanding is that Manitoba came into existence as a result of peaceful Metis activism and was to be a Metis “homeland.” The violence only started when the federal government realized that maybe wealth and power was flowing to the “wrong” people and took action to “correct” that, culminating in the Battle of Batoche, where Metis took their last stand against land theft and further displacement.
I’m an old white guy, but was raised to view the Metis and their leaders as heroes in the struggle against Ottawa’s exercise of unjust control over the Prairie Provinces. I’m about as far from a Western Separatist as can be, but I firmly believe that Western Separatism is a continuation of that struggle, despite now excluding those who fought and died and, yes, killed during the earliest days of that struggle.
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