OTTAWA — Family members of the late Barbara Kentner are demanding that the Parole Board of Canada explain why it granted her attacker full parole without first meeting with them.

Kentner was walking on a street in Thunder Bay, Ont., with her sister in 2017 when Brayden Bushby tossed a trailer hitch at her, striking her in the abdomen. The First Nations woman from Wabigoon Lake Ojibway Nation died six months later.

Bushby, now 27, pleaded guilty to aggravated assault but was convicted of manslaughter for what the presiding judge described as a callous, misogynist attack.

He recently was granted full parole after being sentenced in 2021 to eight years in prison.

“Our family is left feeling that we have once again been failed by a system that is supposed to recognize and respect victims of a crime,” Kentner’s sister Connie Kentner said on Parliament Hill on Monday.

“When the Parole Board makes a decision like this, they are not deciding in a vacuum. There is a family on the other side of that decision, which is us.”

She and First Nations leaders from Nishnawbe Aski Nation and Grand Council Treaty #3 are calling on the Parole Board to explain why the family was not properly informed of the decision to grant Bushby full parole.

“My sister was a real person. She was not just a victim,” Kentner said.

“She had a laugh, she had dreams. She deserved to see her children grow and she deserved to be a grandmother. We will not let Barbara be forgotten.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 31, 2026.

— With files from Paola Loriggio in Toronto

Alessia Passafiume, The Canadian Press