Ipperwash Inquiry

Ipperwash Inquiry was a two-year public judicial inquiry funded by the Government of Ontario, led by Sidney B. Linden, and established under the Ontario Public Inquiries Act (1990), which culminated in a four volume 1,533-page Ipperwash Inquiry Report released on May 30, 2007.[1]:425 The inquiry was established by then Premier Dalton McGuinty shortly after he took office after winning the Ontario general election on October 23, 2003. On November 12, 2003 the Liberals called for an inquiry with a twofold purpose, to investigate events surrounding the death of 38-year-old Dudley George, who was shot and killed by an OPP officer at Ipperwash Provincial Park in September 1995, and to make recommendations to prevent the escalation of violence that took place during the Ipperwash Crisis.[2] According to the report, George was the "first aboriginal person to be killed in a land-rights dispute in Canada since the 19th century."[3] The report found that "the appropriation of the Stony Point reserve by the Government of Canada in 1942 was unprecedented in Canadian history."[4]

Indigenous peoples
in Canada

Public judicial inquiry

The public judicial inquiry was funded by the Government of Ontario under the Ontario Public Inquiries Act (1990).[5] In the introduction of Volume 3 of his final report, Linden explained how public inquiries are "established by government, and their objective is to fulfill the mandate set out in an order-in-council, yet they are independent of government."[6]:2,3 He wrote that a "public inquiry can be called to uncover the truth about a specific matter... and to propose policy reform" as was the case with the Ipperwash inquiry.[6]:3

It was led by a neutral third party, Sidney B. Linden, "pursuant to his powers as commissioner established under the Ontario Public Inquiries Act." The inquiry culminated in a four volume 1,533-page Ipperwash Inquiry Report released on May 30, 2007.[1]:425 The public inquiry was funded by the Government of Ontario but conducted by a neutral third party, Linden, was a neutral third party "pursuant to his powers as commissioner established under the Ontario Public Inquiries Act".

Mandate

The inquiry had a twofold mandate, set out by the order in council, "to look into and report on events surrounding the death of Dudley George and to make recommendations focused on the avoidance of violence in similar circumstances."[4]

Landmark inquiry

The Ipperwash inquiry has been called a landmark by Amnesty International Canada.[7] According to a June 1, 2007 article in The Toronto Star, the Law Society of Upper Canada described it as "a landmark report on Aboriginal, police and government relations."[8][Notes 1]

Ipperwash Inquiry Report

The inquiry culminated in the four volume 1,533-page Ipperwash Inquiry Report released on May 30, 2007.[3][1]:425 According to the report, George was the "first aboriginal person to be killed in a land-rights dispute in Canada since the 19th century."[3][1]:425

The full report[3] consisted of 4 volumes. Volume 1 covered "Investigation and Findings",[9] Volume 2 was on Policy Analysis,[10] Volume 3 was on Inquiry Process,[11] and Volume 4 included the Executive Summary.[12]

According to the section "OPP Prepare for Park Occupation" in Volume 2, on August 29, 1995, OPP Incident Commander John Carson contacted RCMP Inspector Dave Guy in British Columbia about possible similarities with the Gustafsen Lake standoff where the RCMP had been "subject to gunfire".[13]:176[14]

Background

For ten years Dudley George's brother Sam George fought "for justice" calling for an inquiry into Dudley's death. In 2008, a year after the report was released, Sam George was inducted into the Order of Ontario. The man who nominated George, Wayne Samuelson, said that, "Sam George did not seek revenge – he sought justice. Sam is a man of peace, a shining example for us all. Debewin is the Ojibway word for truth. It means the truth is supposed to heal us all. That’s what Sam set out to do."[15]

In 2003 Amnesty International renewed its call for an inquiry.[16] Alex Neve, secretary-general of Amnesty International Canada said that "[e}Eight years is simply too long to wait for answer" and that governments at the federal and provincial level had "ignored their responsibilities" and defied a 1999 request from the United Nations. He added that this was "hurting Canada's efforts to pressure other countries on human rights and cited this country's dispute with Iran over the death of Iranian-Canadian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi as an example."[16]

According to a 2015 history of the Ontario Court of Justice, for many years the family of Dudley George, especially his brother Sam George had called for an investigation, questions had continued to be raised in the Ontario Legislature, and journalists had continued their investigations.[1] On November 12, 2003, the Liberal government that had just won the Ontario general election on October 23, 2003, under Premier McGuinty, called for an inquiry.[Notes 2][17][18]:A1

Original land claim

In Volume 1, in the section "History of Stoney Point and Kettle Point", Joan Holmes reported that in 1937 the Chief and Council of the Kettle and Stony Point Band had requested that the provincial government preserve an old Indian burial ground at Ipperwash Beach by fencing it to protect it.[19]:44 This section of the report described in detail the discovery and authentication of burial sites, the appropriation of land containing the burial sites, and the unrelenting efforts on the part of the Kettle and Stony Point Band to have this site protected.[19]:44–64 It also described the establishment of Ipperwash Provincial Park in 1936 and the ongoing efforts of the First Nations to protect the burial sites.[19]:42–46[20] Stony Point of According to a September 20, 2015 CBC News report twenty years after the Ipperwash Crisis, the land dispute dated back to 1942, when the federal government appropriated Chippewas of Kettle and Stony Point First Nation's land to build Camp Ipperwash, a military base, under the War Measures Act and relocated 16 First Nation families and their homes.[21] The land was supposed to be used as a base only during the war and with a promise of compensation. After World War II, the land was not returned to the First Nation, Camp Ipperwash was used for training cadets until 1995. The First Nations claimed that Sandy Point was a sacred burial site.[21] By 1993, members of the First Nation began to occupy Camp Ipperwash while the military was using the land for training army cadets.[21] In 1995 the military withdrew.[21] A group of 30 First Nations protesters marched into Ipperwash Provincial Park and took up occupation on September 4, 1995.[21]

Conclusions

The report found that "the appropriation of the Stony Point reserve by the Government of Canada in 1942 was unprecedented in Canadian history."[4]

The inquiry "found that the OPP, the provincial government led by Premier Mike Harris, and the federal government all bore responsibility for the events that led to George’s death. Linden also called on the federal government to issue a public apology and return Camp Ipperwash – along with compensation – to the Kettle and Stoney Point First Nation."[1]:425 In Volume 1 of the report it was noted that, Premier Harris's "comments" and "generally the speed at which he wished to end the occupation of Ipperwash Park, created an atmosphere that unduly narrowed the scope of the government's response to the Aboriginal occupation."[22]:392

The report made 100 recommendations.[7][23]

Responses

In reference to the Aboriginal occupation of land in Caledonia

The Ipperwash inquiry proceedings were taking place at the same time as the Caledonia land dispute also known as the Grand River land dispute. In 2006, members of the Six Nations of the Grand River took control of a disputed parcel of land in Caledonia, Ontario, in Haldimand County known as the Haldimand Tract. The Caledonia occupation resulted in a successful $20 million lawsuit by Caledonia residents against the Crown.[24] The University of Western Ontario's political science professor, Andrew Sancton wrote in his 2012 article, that the case for Caledonia residents would have been weaker if the Crown had implemented Linden's "democratic policing" model.[25]:365 In her 2010 book entitled Helpless: Caledonia's Nightmare of Fear and Anarchy, and How the Law Failed All of Us, reporter Christie Blatchford said that Linden's democratic policing model received "virtually no public attention". She decried the vacuum of policy accountability.[24] Blatchford said that a "more intelligent and sympathetic view of aboriginal and Canadian history [than the Ipperwash Inquiry report] would be hard to find"[26]

Five year anniversary of the Inquiry (2012)

By 2012, Ontario Regional Chief Angus Toulouse said that, "the most meaningful recommendations remain[ed] unaddressed and combined with the fact that the province ha[d] cut funding to support joint implementation work by half compared to 2007 levels" First Nations questioned whether the Ontario government was "committed to making the changes necessary to achieve reconciliation with First Nations in Ontario."[4]

Twenty years after Dudley's death (2015)

By January 2015, the disputed land still had not been returned to the Kettle and Stoney Point First Nation.[27][1]:425 In 2010 the Ontario government had confirmed that the land had been transferred to the "federal government, which alone has the power to designate reserve territory."[1]:425 On September 18, 2015 members of the Chippewas of Kettle and Stony Point First Nation voted to approve a deal with the federal government which included a "$90-million dollar financial settlement", the "return of land appropriated by the federal government in 1942 and the cleanup of Stoney Point lands."[21]

Notes
  1. According to The Star, Sidney Linden, "as "head of the judicial inquiry into the Dudley George shooting, Linden spent two years listening to 139 witnesses, 229 days of testimony and was presented with 23,000 documents."
  2. The Ipperwash crisis and the tainted water crisis in Walkerton improved McGuinty's chances of replacing the Conservative government that had been in power under Mike Harris from 1995 through 2002 and under Ernie Eves from 2002 through 2003.
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References
  1. Ontario Court of Justice: a History (PDF), History Project, Jul 26, 2015, retrieved March 16, 2019
  2. "Long-awaited probe gearing up". Toronto Star. January 4, 2004.
  3. Sidney B. Linden (May 30, 2007). Ipperwash Inquiry Report (Report). Attorney General of Ontario. Full report
  4. Chiefs of Ontario (May 31, 2012). "First Nations in Ontario question provincial government commitment on the fifth anniversary of Ipperwash Inquiry Report". Toronto, Ontario. Retrieved March 16, 2019.CS1 maint: uses authors parameter (link)
  5. "Public Inquiries Act, 1990, R.S.O. 1990, c. P41". Government of Ontario. June 21, 2006. Retrieved February 14, 2020.
  6. Sidney B. Linden (May 30, 2007). Volume 3: Inquiry Process: Introduction (PDF) (Report). Ipperwash Inquiry Report. Attorney General of Ontario. p. 6.
  7. "Ipperwash Inquiry". Amnesty International Canada. March 7, 2017. Retrieved March 16, 2019.
  8. "Who is Sidney Linden?". The Toronto Star. June 1, 2007. Retrieved March 16, 2019.
  9. Sidney B. Linden (May 30, 2007). Ipperwash Inquiry Report (Report). Index. 1. Attorney General of Ontario.
  10. Sidney B. Linden (May 30, 2007). Ipperwash Inquiry Report (Report). Index. 3. Attorney General of Ontario.
  11. Sidney B. Linden (May 30, 2007). Ipperwash Inquiry Report (Report). Index. 3. Attorney General of Ontario.
  12. Sidney B. Linden (May 30, 2007). Ipperwash Inquiry Report (Report). Index. 4. Attorney General of Ontario.
  13. Sidney B. Linden (May 30, 2007). Ipperwash Inquiry Report (PDF) (Report). Index. 3. Attorney General of Ontario.
  14. Howell, Mike. "Part 6: As city transforms, First Nations elders see improvement but also much work ahead". Vancouver Courier. Retrieved 2019-03-17.
  15. "Sam George receives Order of Ontario". Ontario News. November 2008. Retrieved March 17, 2019.
  16. Gray, Jeff (September 5, 2003). "Rights group demands Ipperwash inquiry". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved March 18, 2019.
  17. D'Angelo, Carmen (September 24, 2003). "The red wave". Dundas Star News. p. 9.
  18. Mallan, Caroline (September 27, 2003). "Liberal majority: poll; McGuinty leads Eves as best premier". The Hamilton Spectator.
  19. Sidney B. Linden (May 30, 2007). "2". Ipperwash Inquiry Report (PDF) (Report). 1. Attorney General of Ontario.
  20. Brown, Dan (4 July 2014). "Paradise lost". The London Free Press. Archived from the original on 23 August 2014.
  21. "20 years after Ipperwash crisis, First Nation accepts $95M federal settlement". CBC News. September 20, 2015. Retrieved March 17, 2019.
  22. Sidney B. Linden (May 30, 2007). Ipperwash Inquiry Report (PDF) (Report). 1. Attorney General of Ontario. p. 773. Volume 1
  23. Ipperwash Inquiry Report. Government of Ontario webpage summary (Report).
  24. Blatchford, Christie (2010). Helpless: Caledonia's Nightmare of Fear and Anarchy, and How the Law Failed All of Us. Anchor Canada. p. 288. ISBN 0385670400. OCLC 656133164.
  25. Sancton, Andrew (September 2012). "'Democratic Policing': Lessons from Ipperwash and Caledonia". Canadian Public Administration. 55 (2): 365. doi:10.1111/j.1754-7121.2012.00228.x. Abstract: "Recently, there has been much controversy and confusion about the concept of “police independence” in the United Kingdom and Canada. The concept loomed large during the Ipperwash Inquiry, in which the alleged political direction of the Ontario Provincial Police was a major issue. The Inquiry's final report recommended adopting a “democratic policing” model, which is significantly different from the “police independence” model. This aspect of the report has, however, received little or no public attention. Instead, the Ontario government continues to support “police independence,” while simultaneously claiming to implement the recommendations of the Ipperwash Inquiry."
  26. Blatchford, Christie (January 11, 2013). "Police operate in vacuum of accountability with aboriginal protesters". The National Post.
  27. Bryant, Michael (January 22, 2015). "Twenty years after Dudley George's death, land still in federal hands". Toronto Star.
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