Everything about The Ipperwash totally explained
The
Ipperwash Crisis was an Indigenous land dispute that occurred in
Ipperwash Provincial Park,
Ontario in
1995. Several members of the Stoney Point
Ojibway band occupied the park in order to assert their
claim to the land. This led to a violent confrontation between protesters and the
Ontario Provincial Police, who killed protester
Dudley George. The ensuing controversy was a major event in
Canadian politics, and a provincial inquiry, under former Ontario Chief Justice Sidney Linden, investigating the events was completed in the fall of 2006.
Background
In
1936, the
Province of Ontario created Ipperwash Provincial Park.
In
1942, during
World War II, the
Government of Canada wanted reserve land from the
Stoney Point Band for military training and offered to buy it for $15 per acre, and a promise to return the land after the war ended. The Natives rejected the offer, and in response, the federal government appropriated the lands from the Stoney Point Reserve under the
War Measures Act and established
Military Camp Ipperwash. The
First Nations claim that the grounds contain a
burial site.
As early as 1993, while Camp Ipperwash was still being used as cadet summer training centre for the
Royal Canadian Army Cadets, a few natives had occupied the adjacent piece of land. After the summer of 1993, the cadet camp was no longer used, and cadet training was moved to
CFB Borden. This illustrates that the natives occupied the land earlier than 1995.
Occupation of the park
On
Labour Day Monday,
September 4,
1995, a group of natives started a protest in Ipperwash Provincial Park to draw attention to the decades-old land claims. The park had closed at 6:00 p.m., and by 7:30, protestors had cut back a fence and moved vehicles into the Park. About thirty-five protestors occupied the park. The occupation came as no surprise to local police, as they'd been threatening to occupy the park since the previous May. The original OPP strategy was to co-occupy the Park peacefully with the First Nations occupiers. However, the event came to a crisis when a Native from the group smashed the window of a police cruiser. The OPP decided not to engage the Natives and pulled back from the Park.
In anticipation of the move on the Park by the Stoney Point First Nations, the OPP had prepared a contingency plan named Project Maple. The plan stressed "a peaceful resolution", and called for a team of two negotiators to be on call around the clock.
Ontario PC M.P.P. Marcel Beaubien was in contact with the police the following day, and Beaubien also contacted the office of the
Premier,
Mike Harris in an attempt to put pressure on the government to intervene. On Tuesday,
September 5,
1995 several government officials were involved in a meeting in Toronto to discuss the Ipperwash protest. The meeting notes conclude that "The province will take steps to remove the occupiers as soon as possible."
Death of Dudley George
On Wednesday, the OPP became concerned about a group of Native occupiers who had wandered outside of the Park and into the Sandy Park lot area adjacent to the cottages. The group was carrying bats and sticks in their hands. There is some debate as to the number of the group, though police reports indicate a group of up to 8. There was also misinformation about damage that had been done to a Band Councillor's car by this group of occupiers. The damage to the Councillor's car was by a rock thrown by one of the occupiers who took exception to an article the Councillor had written disapproving of the occupation. Police involved started a rumour that the occupiers smashed up the vehicle of a female driver with baseball bats, a report that was later found to be false and misleading by Justice Sidney Linden .
Out of public safety concerns, the OPP decided to deploy the Crowd Management Unit (CMU) to force the Native occupiers back into the Park. The CMU was essentially a riot squad armed with steel batons, shields and helmets. The CMU was backed up by a Tactical Response Unit, which is a Canadian term for a
SWAT team. The plan was that this show of force would convince the Native occupiers to return inside the Park.
On Wednesday evening, police riot squads marched down to the Sandy Parking Lot to confront the Natives. As the CMU advanced, the Natives initially retreated back and the CMU responded by retreating back. A particular occupier, Cecil Bernard George approached the police (peacefully according to the protesters, violently according to police reports). Cecil Bernard was taken down and surrounded by police, beaten and arrested. Native occupiers attempted to rescue Cecil Bernard George from the assault from the police units. This resulted in a riot scene. A car and a school bus driven by Natives started coming out of the park to assist the Native occupiers. The OPP TRU teams opened fire on the vehicles resulting in the wounding of two Native protesters and the death of
Dudley George. According to police officers there was gunfire from the vehicles. This is denied by the First Nations occupiers who insisted there were no weapons in the Park that night.
Various police officers fired on vehicles. Among the police was Acting Sergeant
Ken "Tex" Deane, who was a member of the TRU. Near the park entrance, Deane fired three shots at Dudley George, who was about fifteen feet from the park entrance, and was hit and badly injured. Deane later claimed he'd mistaken the elongated dark coloured branch which George was carrying for a
rifle.
Dudley George's sister and brother attempted to bring him to the local hospital for treatment but were delayed and arrested by the OPP for over an hour. George was declared dead at 12:20 a.m. on
September 7,
1995 at nearby Strathroy Middlesex General Hospital, in
Strathroy, Ontario.
Consequences
Criminal investigation
Acting Sergeant Ken Deane was convicted of
criminal negligence causing death. Deane's defence was that he'd believed that Dudley George was carrying a
rifle. The judge rejected Deane's claim, but sentenced Deane to a conditional sentence two years less a day to be served in the community (not in custody).
Despite Deane's conviction, larger questions about the role of the office of
PC Premier
Mike Harris remained. Some argued that Harris urged strong police action in Ipperwash because a similar incident – the
Oka crisis in
Quebec – had caused the public to view the Quebec government as weak, and that this view contributed to the government's defeat in the next election. Some also believe that as Harris' government had been newly elected, they were attempting to signal a departure from the policies of the previous
NDP government of
Bob Rae and may also have been inexperienced in dealing with crises.
Inquiry
The George family repeatedly called on the Ontario and federal governments to launch an inquiry into the events at Ipperwash. An investigation was launched on November 12, 2003, after the Ontario Conservatives lost power to the
Ontario Liberal Party in the
2003 provincial election.
In Ontario, a public inquiry was funded by the Government of Ontario but conducted by a neutral third party. The mandate of the Ipperwash Inquiry was to investigate and report on the events leading to the death of
Dudley George, and to make recommendations that would help prevent similar circumstances. The inquiry was neither a civil nor criminal trial.
During the inquiry, a 17-minute tape recording surfaced that cast new light on the events at Ipperwash. The tape records a conversation between OPP Inspector Ron Fox and Inspector John Carson, the OPP commander overseeing the standoff at Ipperwash, prior to Dudley George's death. In it, they discuss the Premier's view that the government has "tried to pacify and pander to these people far too long" and to use "swift affirmative action" to remove them from the park.
Other testimony has further put the Harris government in a bad light. In particular, former Harris aide,
Deb Hutton repeatedly testified in November, 2005, that she couldn't remember any specific conversations, leading one cross-examiner to pointedly remark that she'd used phrases such as "I don't recall" or "I don't specifically recall" on 134 separate occasions. Also former Ontario Provincial Attorney General
Charles Harnick testified that Harris used profanity (shouting, "I want the fucking Indians out of the park."), although later witnesses denied Harnick's evidence.
Former Premier Mike Harris appeared before the inquiry on
February 14 2006. He testified that he'd never said the statement attributed to him by Harnick. However, with respect to Premier Harris' and Minister Hodgson's alleged use of profanity, Justice Linden "found the statements were made and they were racist, whether intended or not."
A tape recording made the day before
Dudley George was killed heard then OPP Sgt. Stan Korosec, in charge of the OPP emergency response team at Ipperwash, say "We want to amass a fucking army. A real fucking army and do this. Do these fuckers big-time."
The evidentiary hearings of the inquiry ended on June 28, 2006. Justice Linden's final report and findings of the inquiry were released on May 31, 2007.
Return of land
On December 20, 2007, the Ontario Provincial government announced its intention to return the 56-hectare Ipperwash Provincial Park to its original owners, the
Chippewas of Kettle and Stony Point First Nation. The decision didn't take immediate effect, as the land will be "co-managed" by the Province and the Chippewas, with consultation from the surrounding community, for the time being.
According to
Aboriginal Affairs Minister
Michael Bryant, the land will be fully returned over an unspecified period of time, until the Chippewas have full control.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Ipperwash'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://ipperwash_crisis.totallyexplained.com">Ipperwash Crisis Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
