The Ipperwash Crisis was an Indigenous land dispute that took place 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 nearby land which had been expropriated from them during World War II. During a violent confrontation, the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) killed unarmed protester Dudley George.
The ensuing controversy was a major event in Canadian politics. In 2003 a provincial inquiry was started after a change in government. Former Ontario Chief Justice Sidney Linden led the investigation of events, which was completed in the fall of 2006.[1]
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In 1936, the Province of Ontario created Ipperwash Provincial Park.[2]
In 1942 during World War II, the Government of Canada wanted reserve land from the Stoney Point Band to use as a base for military training and offered to buy it for $15 per acre. They also promised to return the land after the war ended. The Natives rejected the offer.
Under the War Measures Act, the federal government appropriated the lands from the Stoney Point Reserve and established Military Camp Ipperwash. The First Nations claim that the grounds contain a burial site. As of 2010, archaeological surveys have established that such a site does indeed exist.[3]
As early as 1993, while Camp Ipperwash was still being used as a summer training centre for the Royal Canadian Army Cadets, a few natives had occupied portions of the camp and the adjacent piece of land. After the summer of 1993, the government moved the cadet camp to CFB Borden. There was growing tension about the base at Camp Ipperwash.
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. After the park closed at 6:00 p.m., protestors cut back a fence and by 7:30 had moved vehicles into the park. About thirty-five protestors occupied the park. The protestors had been threatening occupation since the spring. The original OPP (Ontario Provincial Police) strategy was to co-occupy the Park peacefully with the First Nations. But, when a protester from the group smashed the window of a police cruiser, the OPP 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,[4] and Beaubien also contacted the office of the Premier, Mike Harris[5] in an attempt to put pressure on the government to intervene.[6]
On Tuesday, September 5, 1995 several government officials met in Toronto to discuss the Ipperwash protest. The meeting notes conclude, "The province will take steps to remove the occupiers as soon as possible."
On Wednesday, the OPP became concerned about a group of protesters who had wandered outside the Park and into the Sandy Park lot area adjacent to the cottages. The group was allegedly carrying bats and sticks in their hands. The number of protesters has been debated, although 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 protesters. The damage to the Councillor's car was by a rock thrown by one of the protesters who took exception to an article the Councillor had written disapproving of the occupation. A rumour started that the protesters 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.[7]
Out of public safety concerns, the OPP decided to deploy the Crowd Management Unit (CMU) to force the protesters back into the Park. The CMU was a riot squad armed with steel batons, shields and helmets. The CMU was backed up by a Tactical Response Unit (TRU), effectively a SWAT team. The OPP intended a show of force to move the protesters back inside the park.
On Wednesday evening, police riot squads marched down to the Sandy Parking Lot to confront the protesters. As the CMU advanced, the protesters initially retreated back and the CMU responded by retreating back. A particular protester, Cecil Bernard George approached the police (peacefully according to the protesters, violently according to police reports). George was taken down and surrounded by police and arrested. Protesters attempted to rescue George from the assault by the police units. This resulted in a riot.
A car and a school bus driven by protesters started out of the park to assist the protesters. According to police officers, there was gunfire from these vehicles but First Nations protesters have insisted they had no weapons in the park that night. The OPP TRU teams opened fire on the vehicles, resulting in the wounding of two Native protesters and the death of Dudley George, an Ojibwa protestor. Among the TRU members was Acting Sergeant Ken "Tex" Deane, a senior officer in charge of a four-man sniper team with the job of escorting the force's crowd management unit. Deane was near the park entrance and fired three shots at Dudley George, who was about fifteen feet from the park entrance,[8] and was hit and badly injured. Deane later claimed he had mistaken the elongated dark coloured branch which George was carrying for a rifle.
George's sister Carolyn and brother Pierre attempted to take him to the local hospital for treatment but were arrested and delayed 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. Anthony O'Brien George (March 17, 1957 – September 7, 1995), nicknamed "Dudley", was the eighth of ten children born to Geneviève ("Jenny") Pauline Rogers George and Reg "Nug" (Reginald Ransford) George.
Acting Sergeant Ken Deane (October 1961 – February 25, 2006) was convicted of criminal negligence causing death.[9] Deane's defence was that he had believed that Dudley George was carrying a rifle. The judge rejected Deane's claim, stating: "I find, sir, that you were not honest in presenting this version of events to the Ontario Provincial Police investigators. You were not honest in presenting this version of events to the Special Investigations Unit of the Province of Ontario. You were not honest in maintaining this ruse before this court."[10] He sentenced Deane to a conditional sentence two years less a day to be served in the community (not in custody).[11]
Deane hung on to his job for 5½ years after the criminal conviction, as he unsuccessfully appealed the verdict to the Ontario Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court of Canada.[12][13] After a subsequent Police Act Hearing, Deane was convicted of Discredible Conduct and ordered to resign in 7 days or be fired. He later worked at an Ontario Hydro nuclear station in security.
Ken Deane died on February 25, 2006, in a car accident, when his vehicle collided with a truck near Prescott. Deane was on his way to testify in the inquiry.[14]
The George family repeatedly called on the Ontario and federal governments to launch an inquiry into the events at Ipperwash. A public inquiry was launched on November 12, 2003, after the Ontario Conservatives lost power to the Dalton McGuinty's Ontario Liberal Party in the 2003 election.
The public inquiry was funded by the Government of Ontario but conducted by a neutral third party, Sidney B. Linden, pursuant to his powers as commissioner established under the Public Inquiries Act (Ontario). The inquiry's mandate was to inquire and report on events surrounding the death of Dudley George. The inquiry was also asked to make recommendations that would avoid violence in similar circumstances in the future. 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 George's death. They discussed the Premier Mike Harris'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 had used phrases such as "I don't recall" or "I don't specifically recall" on 134 separate occasions.[15] Also former Ontario Provincial Attorney General Charles Harnick testified that Harris used profanity while shouting, "I want the fucking Indians out of the park."[16] Later witnesses denied Harnick's evidence.
Former Premier Mike Harris appeared before the inquiry on February 14, 2006. He testified that he had never said the statement attributed to him by Harnick.[17] Justice Linden "found the statements were made and they were racist, whether intended or not."[18]
The day before George was killed, a call was recorded in which then-OPP Sgt. Stan Korosec, in charge of the OPP emergency response team at Ipperwash, said, "We want to amass a fucking army. A real fucking army and do this. Do these fuckers big-time."[19]
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.[20]
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.[21] The decision did not 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.
On Thursday 28 May 2009, Ontario Aboriginal Affairs Minister Brad Duguid formally signed over control of Ipperwash Park[22] to the Chippewas of Kettle and Stony Point First Nation.