'We did not want to let him go,' mom says at First Nations student deaths inquest
Families may never get answers they're seeking at the inquest, lawyer says
The mother of a First Nations student who died while attending high school in Thunder Bay, Ont. says the family didn't want him come to the city.
Mary Owen raised her sister's son, Reggie Bushie, in Poplar Hill First Nation where school only goes to Grade 8. Bushie was 15 years old in 2007 when he came to Thunder Bay for high school. He had never been to the city before. He died within months of arriving.
'We didn't want him to come to Thunder Bay,' Owen testified on Tuesday through an Ojibway interpreter, tears streaming down her face.
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The inquest took a brief recess while Owen regained her composure.
"We didn't want to let him go," she said when she returned to the stand. "We loved him and really cared for him. We did not want him to leave."
Former schoolmates of Bushie's testified on Monday that he was out drinking with them on the evening of Oct. 26, 2007, near the McIntyre River. One former student said when she last saw Bushie, he was so drunk he needed his brother's help to stand up.
Bushie disappeared that night. His body was pulled from the river on Nov. 1.
King said she still had questions about what happened on the night her son disappeared, but testified that she could not bring herself to ask them.
Inquiry vs. Inquest
Bushie's death and his family's quest for answers prompted an inquest that began briefly in 2009, but was then delayed by problems with Ontario's jury roll system. Various interventions eventually led to the inquest into the deaths of seven First Nations students in Thunder Bay that began in October and will wrap up in March.
The lawyer for the Bushie family, Jonathan Rudin, said the families may have been better served by a public inquiry instead of an inquest.
"If we had an inquiry, which was our preferred choice, it would have been conducted by a judge who would have had more resources to look into broader questions," Rudin said. "Our experience is that public inquiries have more heft."
Many families are seeking specific details about how their children were cared for in the city; how police responded when they went missing and how they died. They also want to know why their kids, unlike most Canadians, have to leave home to go to high school.
There's no guarantee the inquest will deliver those answers, Rudin said.
"As you've seen, this brings back very, very painful memories for people," Rudin said. "People want answers and I don't know if we're going to be able to give them the answers they want yet. And I don't know if we're ever going to be able to do that.
The inquest has yet to hear from the families of the two students who died most recently. Evidence about the death of Kyle Morrisseau is expected in December, and Jordan Wabasse in January.
After that, a second phase of the inquest will look at the broader context of the students' lives and hear ideas about keeping them safe.
The inquest is making it clear that there is "a need for a reconsideration of the way young people, who live on First Nations reserves and want an education, are given that education" Rudin said.
Watch live streaming video from the First Nation student deaths inquest here.