Alexandre Alexandre:
Riel fought for the right cause. He was a freedom fighter.
Thomas Scott was a racist orangeman who fought the Métis and was executed for it. That sort of things happen often during insurection. Nazis were often executed by partisans when they got captured during ww2. Hell, even the canadian troops did it.
Even tough he was not perfect, he and his rebels fought for the good cause against a much stronger ennemy. Thats enough for me to consider him a hero.
Personnally i dont believe you when you say that Riel was a bad guy only because he executed Thomas Scott, that's hypocrisy to me, because lots of you consider war criminals and mass-murderers like Wolfe and Amherst as heros. You hate him because he was a french guy who dared to rebel against the british crown, period.
Spare me the banal French-separatist revisionist drivel. I "hate" him? Nah...I know history - evidently better than you - and Riel's "provisional" government murdered Scott. Don't like it? I don't care.
And here's some history for ya' -
Riel's Kangaroo court (an all Metis jury?) was a true miscarriage of justice - it's interesting that you condemn the Dominion trial latter, but refuse to acknowledge similar actions in the earlier execution. Bias on your part
Wolfe isn't a mass-murderer anymore than Montcalm is or Dumont or Papineau. That's bad history. Your anti-English is shining through again.
Riel resorted to violence, time and time again, to push his agenda. If that constitutes a "hero" in your world, fine, but history will remember him as a mentally unstable, hypocritical, seditious murderer.