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About Louis Riel Day in Canada

In 2008 the Canadian Government decided to honor one of its folk heroes, Louis Riel. Riel was born in 1844 and served in the Canadian Parliament for just four months from October 1873-January 1874. He’s celebrated for founding the province of Manitoba and for leading two resistance movements against the Canadian government in an effort to preserve the human rights, culture and lands of the native Métis people.

It was on February 17, 2025 that forty-eight men of the Canadian Party, a resistance movement against the provisional government, were arrested near Fort Garry. Among those arrested was a man named Thomas Scott, who was executed by firing squad on March 4. His execution lead directly to the talks which formed the basis for the Manitoba Act which went into force on May 12, 1870. Wikipedia has an in-depth essay on the life of Louis Riel here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Riel

Louis Riel Day falls on the same day as Family Day, a national holiday in Canada (everywhere but British Columbia, which celebrates it a week earlier so Riel gets his own day).

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