Native violence becomes blameless - Ipperwash inquiry effectively legitimizes illegal protests

When the newly elected premier Dalton McGuinty called the Ipperwash inquiry in November, 2003, there was more than a whiff of politics in the air. The pending wrongful death suit brought by the family of Dudley George against Mike Harris had provided useful fodder for the Liberals during and after the former premier’s time in office and all through the 2003 campaign. The damage done, on election day the family suddenly dropped the suit — four days before the trial was to begin. So for all of Mr. McGuinty’s pious claims that the inquiry was merely about “looking for the truth about what happened” the night Mr. George was killed and “what lessons we might draw from that tragedy so that we can ensure that it is never repeated,” the subtext was clear: It was to put Mr. Harris and his government on trial.

The natives who seized the park had no mandate to do so from the local band council, and indeed faced active opposition from other band members for having done so.
Many of those who participated were not even from the area, but had travelled from as far away as the United States to show their support.

No formal warning was offered that the park was about to be occupied. No grievance was clearly articulated beforehand, other than a vague, disputed and intermittently advocated claim that the park contained a native burial ground. Even after the occupation began, the protesters refused to communicate in any way with the police. And in almost every case where police and natives clashed, the violence was initiated by the natives. While the beating of Cecil Bernard George at the hands of several OPP officers, the proximate cause of the events leading to the other Mr. George’s death, was clearly deplorable, it came only after the first Mr. George had whacked an officer with a six-foot length of pipe. The fatal shooting — again, as wholly unjustified as it was — came after natives drove a bus at police.

So the police badly mishandled the occupation, yes. But had this particular group of natives not taken it into their heads to break the law, defy their band council, and seize the provincial park, they would never have come into conflict with the police. Yet throughout his report, Judge Linden takes the existence of this and other such native occupations as a given.

They simply “occur,” as if by acts of God…

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