Law’90 grad helps rig They say the wheels of justice sometimes grind slowly. And sometimes those wheels need help to get moving at all. Earlier this year, Blaine Favel, Law’90, saw the truth of those words when a lobbying effort he had championed for more than 25 years finally persuaded the federal government to exonerate the legendary Cree Chief Pîhtokahanapiwiyin (“Poundmaker”) from a wrongful 1885 treason conviction. “Poundmaker was a good man and a good chief who took care of his people. He was unfairly convicted,” says Favel. “The decision to set history right is the best news I’ve heard in a long time.” Poundmaker’s story is one Favel knows well. The CEO of Kanata Earth Management (a Cut Knife, Saskatchewan-based, Indigenous-owned producer of organically grown cannabis), is himself a former chief of the Poundmaker First Nation, a former grand-chief of the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations, and Chancellor Emeritus of the University of Saskatchewan. “I became aware of Poundmaker’s story when I was growing up, and during my own time as chief, I started working with other members of the Poundmaker First Nation to clear his name.”
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Legendary Cree Chief Pîhtokahanapiwiyin (“Poundmaker”) was wrongfully convicted of treason in 1885. NATIONAL ARCHIVES CANADA
In May 1885 in the midst of the Northwest Rebellion, the chief went to Fort Battleford in an unsuccessful effort to convince a government “Indian agent” to provide treaty payments to starving members of the Poundmaker First Nation. However, when the chief and his stillhungry men returned to their reserve, they were pursued by government soldiers intent on exacting revenge for some looting the Cree were wrongly alleged to have committed. On the morning of May 2, the troops launched a sneak attack.
