Michael MacPherson pleaded guilty to manslaughter Wednesday in Yukon Supreme Court in the 2014 death of Tanner Sinclair.

MacPherson, 34, was charged with second-degree murder in November 2015 in relation to the stabbing. He had been scheduled for a jury trial next month.

Tanner’s father, Brent Sinclair, said today he was not surprised by the plea. He had expected MacPherson would be found guilty by a jury, but would rather the case be taken to trial.

“It’s numbing; it’s sad that we have no justice system,” he told the Star from Alberta.

“We have a flawed, pathetic, liberal excuse for a legal system, but there is no justice system at all.”

Sinclair spoke of a lack of communication among the courts, the RCMP, and his family, and noted issues of overcrowding in Canada’s justice system.

According to the agreed statement of facts filed with the court, a fight broke out between MacPherson and Sinclair during a gathering on July 14, 2014 at a home in Whitehorse’s Cooper Ridge neighbourhood. It was over mechanical issues with a truck that Sinclair had sold to MacPherson.

Although arrangements were made to fix the truck, “there was unresolved tension between them because Mr. MacPherson hadn’t paid for the parts.”

A witness stated that while she did not see the knife, she heard the stabbing, as well as Sinclair saying “Enough!” and “He is stabbing me!”

Sinclair suffered four stab wounds to his torso and back and one on his left arm from the attack.

He died of his wounds on the morning of July 15, 2014 in hospital. He was 27 years old.

Sinclair, a native of Pincher Creek, Alta., moved to Whitehorse two years before he was killed and worked as a sheep hunting guide.

At the time of his death, he was working at Glacier Drilling and was well known within the hunting community.

He was posthumously awarded with the Wild Sheep Foundation’s prestigious G.C.F. Dalziel Outstanding Guide Award in 2015, presented annually to a North American guide.

“He became a very considerate and caring young man,” Sinclair said of his late son.

“People followed him because of his ability to handle situations and excel in everything that he did.”

Following his death, there was an outpouring of support from the Whitehorse and hunting communities for Sinclair’s wife, Whitney Sandulak, and daughter Keele.

Sandulak was pregnant with their second daughter at the time. Bennett Hope was born in September 2014.

Hundreds of people donated to an online fundraising campaign titled “Tanner Sinclairs’ Family Fund”.

The Wild Sheep Foundation donated $100,000 to the family, proceeds from the auction of two 30-day Yukon sheep hunts.

“It showed the type of individual that Tanner was,” Brent Sinclair said of the support.

“I want to thank everyone who’s been there for us in the past, and I know those people will be there as life goes on,” he added, noting that Tanner would have done the same for others.

MacPherson was released on $25,000 bail in May 2015 and flew home with his father to Victoria. He was to enter a drug treatment facility.

He was arrested for bail breaches in British Columbia in early January 2017 and appeared in court in Whitehorse the next day.

MacPherson is scheduled to be sentenced on Feb. 21.

While there is no minimum sentence for manslaughter, unless a firearm is used, it holds a maximum sentence of life in prison.

Justice Leigh Gower presided over the plea.