Front Burner - How an Indigenous man’s murder forced a community to confront racism

Episode Date: November 11, 2019

Kristian Ayoungman, from Siksika First Nation in Southern Alberta, was shot and killed on a rural highway in March. CBC investigative journalist Connie Walker travelled to meet with the young man’s friends and family, as well as the leaders of the two communities he straddled. As she tells host Jayme Poisson, what she found was unexpected. Connie also reflects on her time at the CBC covering Indigenous communities across the country.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hello, I'm Jamie Poisson. This past March, a 24-year-old man from Siksika First Nation in southern Alberta was shot and killed on a rural highway. His name was Christian A. Youngman, and everyone who knew him said he had this bright and promising future ahead of him.

Today, I'm talking to my colleague Connie Walker, who recently traveled to this part of Alberta to talk to Christian's family and friends about how his life ended so tragically and how the Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities there came together during the aftermath. For those of you who have followed Connie's reporting or listened to her podcast Missing and Murdered, you'll know she has dedicated herself to telling the stories of Indigenous people in this country. Sadly, she is leaving the CBC next week, so we'll also talk about what she's learned in the course of her reporting here. This is Frontburner. Hi, Connie. Hi, Jamie. Thanks for having me. Thank you so much for being here.

So can we start with Christian A. Youngman? Can you tell me about this young man? Sure. Christian grew up on the Siksika First Nation. He lived there with his mother, Melody A. Youngman, and he was also very close to another family in the community, Louise and Jason Dorr, who were like second parents to him. Christian grew up very connected to their Blackfoot culture and very involved in ceremonies. He was a champion powwow dancer as a kid. His mom said that, you know, one of her last texts from him because he had stopped dancing as a teenager, that he wanted to start dancing again.

He was asking about his outfit, and he really wanted to dance this summer. And so he would have been dancing here, the stampede. So I had bought all his beads. I bought his rhinestones. I bought his furs and his quill work. Very, very strong roots in his community, but also, you know, a lot of strong connections in the town of Strathmore, which is just 20 minutes, half an hour away. He went to school in Strathmore, played hockey in Strathmore.

Really talented hockey player. Yes, a hockey star. He played in Siksika with the Siksika Buffaloes, but also in Strathmore as well. But I think that, you know, after going there and talking to people who knew Christian, it seemed like he was seen as kind of a bridge between these two communities of Siksika and Strathmore. And, you know, even an example of reconciliation in action, you know, a young First Nations man with a foot in both worlds and definitely seen as somebody who had a promising and bright future ahead of him. Okay, so very popular young man, very well known. And can you

tell me about the events that led to his killing? Sure. Well, I mean, the full details of what happened that night will obviously, you know, come out in any kind of court proceedings that are expected to happen in the new year. But when we were there, we were able to speak with three of Christian's friends who were with him on the night he died and who were actually in the car with him. Brooker Pretty Young Men was his best friend. Brianna Crawler was Brooker's girlfriend. And Riley McMaster. And they told us that on the night, on March 17th, the night Christian died,

that he played an alumni hockey game in Strathmore and then they all went out to a local pub and at the end of the night, when they were outside, they were approached by a group of other young men from Strathmore who they didn't know. I just seen them like arguing at each other and then a fight broke out in the middle of the street. Brianna said that the fight didn't last very long but that it was peppered with racial slurs. She said that one of the young men there swore at her.

He told me go back to go back to the the fucking reserve you fucking dirty Indians. Like get the fuck out of here. Like I I was looking at him, and I was like, are you serious? Wow, that's awful. So Christian's friends said that after that fight broke up, that the groups separated, but that randomly they ran into the same group of guys a little while later, and they had weapons. He got out of the vehicle, and yelled um F it I'm getting my effing gun. And when they saw that they had a gun that Christian, Brooker, Brianna and Riley actually

got back into their car and tried to leave. Like I was scared like he was gonna shoot and as I was backing out all those group of boys just started throwing rocks at the truck. They say that they were chased out of Strathmore by these men. I sped out of there so I was going north and then I looked in the rearview mirror and then I seen lights. And that while they were driving on the highway back to the reserve back to Siksika they say they noticed that the car behind them slowed to a stop. It was like really fast. We heard a shot. And a few seconds later, they realized that Christian had been shot

in the back seat of the truck. Christian said, like, they got me, bro. They got me. I didn't want to look back there. Like, I didn't want to believe it. It's important to say that they don't say they saw who fired the gun or even know for sure where the shot came from, but they soon realized that Christian had been hit by a bullet.

Riley said he'd seen that hole on the seat and blood. They called 911. They eventually pulled over to the side of the road and tried to perform CPR on Christian, but that he died on the road between Siksika and Strathmore. I understand that two brothers in their 20s have been charged with murder. That's right. Brandon Giffen and Cody Giffen, who have been charged with first degree murder in Christian's death, they were arrested a couple of days after the incident. Now, we reached out to both of them through their lawyers and asked them for

comment on our story and what we were reporting. Both of them declined through their lawyers to speak with us. But Cody Giffen was actually granted bail in August. But both Cody and Brandon Giffen are scheduled to appear at a preliminary hearing in Calgary in January. in January. You know, Christian's death, it didn't seem to hit the headlines in the same way as Colton Boushey or Tina Fontaine. Gerald Stanley was acquitted of second-degree murder in the killing of Boushey, a 22-year-old Cree man. The words racism, the words reconciliation being talked about a lot.

Tina Fontaine was 15 when she went missing in Winnipeg in August 2014. Her body later found in the Red River, wrapped up in a duvet cover. She quickly became a national symbol. Not once in my life have I ever seen justice. And why do you think that is? This story is so tragic. No, you're right. I mean, since our story came out

about Christian, we've heard from people who say, you know, they're wondering, why haven't we heard about Christian's story before? Well, in the days immediately after Christian's death, in the hours probably, word started to spread online. People from Siksika were hearing about what had happened to Christian. We spoke to Buck Breaker. He's a councillor on the Siksika First Nation. And he said that, you know, the leadership on the reserve saw this anger bubbling up online, and they were worried that if they didn't try to contain it somehow,

that more violence could follow. Because right now, if that would have happened, the jail cells would have been full, and the morgue would have been full, and the courthouse would have been full. And Melody, a young man who is Christian's mother, was also concerned, you know, with how people in Siksika were responding and feeling. But also she was really concerned about his friends who were with him when he died. And she wanted to make sure that they felt safe going back into Strathmore

and that people from Siksika felt safe being in their home territory where she says that they belong. Because when I spoke to Brooker and Brianna and Riley, they were traumatized. I knew I needed to make sure that they needed to face this head on, not to be scared of anybody, that they needed to face this head-on, not to be scared of anybody, that they can keep their head up. They did all they could to take care of my boy. They didn't do nothing wrong, and that they could go back into Strathmore and feel safe. So what she did was she organized a candlelight vigil

from the reserve to the spot where Christian died, and then on to Strathmore, to the spot where Christian, and then on to Strathmore. Okay. To the spot where Christian, where the altercation first began. She was joined by, obviously, people from the reserve, but then once they got to Strathmore, that there were dozens of people from the community there who also joined to help honour her son. This story feels like a bit of an anomaly,

how these communities have reacted, hey? Yeah, you know, I think that in hearing about Christian, people might think about other high-profile cases from the prairies like Colton Boushey or Tina Fontaine. And in those cases, it seemed like the attention from the media kind of inflamed even broader racial tensions outside of their communities, you know, in the bigger communities across the prairies. And so I think that, you know, that this is absolutely an unusual situation if it's compared to those other cases. And one of the things that I think was also different was the reaction from the community of Strathmore, the mayor of Strathmore, Pat Fuel. He did something that was pretty unusual in the days after Christian's death. He wrote a letter to the editor in the

local paper called Working With Our Neighbors. And in the letter, he outlined how he's lived in the community for over 30 years. He was a teacher for a long time before he became mayor. He knew what a great community this was. But he also admitted that there was racism in Strathmore. We have a huge, huge majority of people who are really good people. And that's why I've lived here for 36 years, is because the people are good. But any town, in any town in Canada, there's going to be small pockets of people who don't understand or are fearful or resentful. And that he had been hearing directly from people from Siksika about their experiences while they were in town, not just, you know, Christian, but other experiences of people

being followed in town, people hearing racist things, you know, in sports. And he called on members of Strathmore to confront the racism. It's easy for us in the majority to think that there isn't a problem, that things are fine and that they're okay. But unless you're in the minority, you don't really see it with the same lens. And so I just wanted to point that out. And that was a pretty bold step for the mayor, and not everyone in town appreciated it.

Yeah, I was going to ask you, how do people respond to that? Well, he said it was pretty controversial that he heard from people who agreed that, you know, they wanted to build a better relationship, but that some people who were upset by him, you know, talking about the racism that he felt exists there. But I was worried about the controversy. My wife was worried about the controversy. But I also didn't feel like I could look at my kids in the eyes if I didn't try to do something that was right. And I know Strathmore residents want to do what's right. It really says a lot about Christian's mother, certainly, and the leadership in both communities. The preliminary hearing for this murder case is coming in the new year, I understand.

And what are the communities planning to do to keep this connection going? Because I imagine a preliminary hearing could, you know, inflame tensions again. I think that whatever happens in the new year, however this plays out in court, whether or not there's a trial is obviously going to be a big test for this new relationship. Since Christian's death, they've started having regular meetings with the town council in Strathmore and the First Nations leadership in Siksika. And that, you know, that doesn't sound that big. But if you consider that these two communities have been living alongside one another for 100, 150 years, and this was more than they've ever done in terms of, you know, having regular

meetings and talking about some of the issues that each community faces. First of all, I just want to thank everybody for coming together again. Thank you for continuing to work together and making a change and a difference for everybody, not just Strathmore, not just Siksika. If there's a trial or if there is some outcome, that there will be people inevitably on both sides who question whether or not justice was served in this case. And I think that for Christian's mother, you know, she's really been led, I think, by her Blackfoot culture and the teachings of her grandparents. And so she, you know, instead of responding with anger to the death of her son, she really felt like she wanted to call for peace and to try to heal this relationship. This is my son's life, but my son's life was taken in the wrong way,

but this isn't the way we're going to deal with it, not with revenge. We weren't taught like that. We're going to come out and show you the real people that we are. We're kind, humble, caring people. that we are. We're kind, humble, caring people. And so when we did that, we did it in pride, with love for my son. She really hopes that this will be a turning point, not just for her community, but for other communities, a more positive relationship between Indigenous people and the non-Indigenous people that we live so closely alongside across the country. In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection.

Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. It strikes me that while this is an incredibly tragic story, it also is a story of progress, perhaps, of awareness. And I wonder, you know, as I mentioned at the top of this podcast, this is coming up on your final days at the CBC.

Yes. And as you wrap up your career here, I'm wondering if you feel like your work as an Indigenous journalist has led us to a place where this progress is possible. Well, I mean, it's not just my work. I mean, there are so many Indigenous journalists across the country at CBC, but also, you know, at APTN and other places, or journalism organizations in Canada. And I think that having that Indigenous representation

in newsrooms has really helped transform the conversations that are happening in this country around the lives and experiences that Indigenous people lead. And for a long time, you know, there wasn't an appetite for those stories. There wasn't an awareness. There wasn't a recognition that they were important stories. Certainly, when I started 19 years ago, that was the situation. When I started 19 years ago, that was the situation. But really, in the last five to seven years, there has been this huge shift, not only in the number of stories that we're reporting from Indigenous communities, but the kinds of stories that are being reported now. And that, I think, is something really encouraging.

And it allows for a nuance and a diversity of experiences, like Christian story and the story of these two communities coming together. You mentioned when you started 19 years ago, there wasn't an appetite for these stories. Can you tell me a little bit more about what it was like? Well, I mean, if there was an appetite, I feel like it was an appetite for a certain kind of story that that a lot of the stories that were covered when I first joined journalism were stories about conflicts or crisis in indigenous communities. And it has been kind of slow progress for a long time. But really, it's been amazing what has happened in the last few years, around the Truth and Reconciliation Commission around the issue of violence against Indigenous women,

and to really have these difficult conversations that are happening in communities, but also happening in newsrooms now, and I think that's a really positive thing. You know, just to pick up on what you said about how these stories also have large audiences, so your podcast, Missing and Murdered. Cleo's spirit is very much alive. She stares at me across time, asking to come up. And which, you know, you worked so hard and spent so much time trying to explain and explore, like, the context of the 60s scoop, residential schools, missing and murdered Indigenous women. You know, what does it say to you that this podcast, there were millions and millions of downloads in Canada and around the world? What does that say to you?

Well, I think it's like if anyone still needed proof that there is an audience for these stories, then that's the proof that there is or that these stories are important. And the Canadians, you know, want to know more about this aspect of our shared history that we weren't taught in schools, that we haven't been covering in media, that haven't been written about in history textbooks or just starting to kind of gain awareness. And so I hope that, you know, that for people here at CBC and people here in Canada, that it's proof that we should be investing more in helping to amplify these stories. And I hope that I get to be a part of helping to continue that as well. But I know that what we've been building, there's no turning back from here.

It's only going to keep going forward. And there are so many amazing, young, talented journalists at CBC and across Canada who are going to keep bringing those stories forward. And, you know, I wonder if I could ask you what advice you might give them. Like, what do we need to do to keep moving forward, to keep improving on the way that we report on these issues? Well, I think that it's really kind of helping to understand the importance, every single story we report on today. And I think that, you know, this story, again, the story of Christian, the story of hearing from his friends who are so impacted by what they all

experienced that day and that night and how this community has changed has also really helped underscore the importance of understanding the role of trauma in indigenous communities and that's something that you know i've i've i've been learning uh you know about since doing this reporting on violence against indigenous women and girls and and that i think it's our responsibility and job as journalists to better understand how trauma affects the people that we're interviewing and the communities that we're interacting with. And what we can do to try to do more trauma-informed reporting so that we're doing whatever we can to ensure that our reporting does not cause more harm for communities and people who are living these experiences. cause more harm for communities and people who are living these experiences. Because at the end of the day, they're important. They're important for people to hear about. They're important for Canadians to know about. But this is somebody's real life, and we need to be aware of that.

And even by reporting on it, we could reopen old wounds. Absolutely. And it's not, again, it's not like you have to do X, Y, and Z, and then everything's going to be okay. You know, it's, you know, as much as Christian's friends, you know, wanted to tell their story, wanted people to know about Christian and Christian's story. have that then be part of a national conversation, to have people then commenting on what they experienced or what they didn't experience, to be putting yourself out there. And that's something I think is a huge responsibility that I feel as a journalist. And I think that we all need to be careful of being careful with people's stories and people's experiences. Connie Walker, thank you so much. And I should say, you're not like leaving journalism. No, no, I'm going on. So I'll continue, hopefully, to get to do some of this important work,

but just not at CBC anymore. I don't know if I'm allowed to say this, but you're moving to New York, right? Yes, I'm moving to New York and I'm joining a podcast company. They're called Gimlet Media. So excited to keep telling these stories. But I'll definitely miss Canada and the CBC. Okay, well, I look forward to listening to your next project. Thanks for having me, Jamie.

Thank you so much for being here. All right, that's all for today. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thank you so much for tuning in and see you tomorrow. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.