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The underlying message of the amendments was: Due process and reasonable doubt are unimportant next to social justice for women. Therefore, it’s justifiable to stack the deck to make sure that when men are accused, they are found guilty.

Now in the wake of the Gerald Stanley verdict in Saskatchewan, are we headed for a similar Liberal deck-stacking against those accused of crimes against Indigenous people?

Since Stanley’s acquittal in the tragic shooting death of a young Cree man named Colten Boushie, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau can’t stop talking and tweeting about how Indigenous Canadians deserve better from our justice system.

Trudeau insists he is not commenting specifically about the Stanley case, but he has met with Boushie’s family and promised them reforms. That sounds like a political threat for the justice system: Give us the verdicts we want or we’ll change the law so cases must come to the conclusions we want.

So, then, are we headed for Gladue 2.0?

Ever since a 1999 Supreme Court decision known as R v Gladue, judges sentencing convicted Indigenous criminals are required to take the defendant’s Indigenous heritage into account – not just his or her specific life events, but the general experience of Indigenous people in Canada.

Indigenous convicts are to receive as little prison time as possible. And, whenever possible, they are to be sentenced to alternatives, such as healing lodges.

Are we now going to see this same principle extended beyond the sentencing of Indigenous criminals to the prosecution of non-Indigenous people accused of committing crimes against Indigenous Canadians? Are non-Indigenous Canadians now to be denied a full defence in court – the way men accused of sexual assault are?