Who authorized occupation of Ipperwash Park?

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Lawyers for the family of slain protester Dudley George, who was killed by police during the Ipperwash Park occupation in September 1995, appeared before the public inquiry into his death Sept. 29 to play a tape for Chief Commissioner Sidney Linden in the hopes of having it made public.

The two lawyers-Murray Klippenstein and Andrew Orkin-and Sam George, Dudley's brother, heard the tape for the first time in late August. They are forbidden by the inquiry's confidentiality rules to reveal the contents of the tape, but felt it necessary to call a press conference on Sept. 3 to express their reaction to what they had heard.

"It is the George family's view and our view as lawyers that the newly obtained taped evidence produced to the commission, evidence which was concealed from the family, the courts and the public for nine years, explains, when carefully analyzed and put into its legal and operational context, why Dudley George was killed," said Klippenstein.

Sam George provided more clues.

"I am an ordinary man. I do not know a great deal about the law. I am not an expert in how non-Native government works in Toronto or Ottawa. But I do know the difference between what is right and wrong. And I can generally tell the difference between what is legal and what is illegal. And I can certainly tell the difference between what is racist against Natives and what is not racist against Natives," he said. "The taped evidence that I heard disgusted me. It also made me frightened that anyone in Ontario could have attitudes and positions like the ones contained in this taped evidence.

"What I have now heard goes a long way to explaining why my brother Dudley was killed. I now believe he was shot to make a political point. This taped evidence also explains to me why so much effort was put into preventing the truth coming out for the next eight years. I think that the people who were implicated in this tape know very well that the people of Ontario and people everywhere in Canada would judge them very harshly if it ever came out. The truth will come out because otherwise our brother Dudley will have died for nothing."

A Canadian Press report quoted unnamed sources saying the tape was of a long telephone conversation between two OPP officers just before the shooting. One of the individuals was of high rank and was on the line at the Ontario legislature. Birchbark could not confirm that information.

Klippenstein said the evidence was disclosed to the family but is still in the hands of an unnamed party. He said he planned to urge that party to make the tape public.

Stony Pointer Marlin Simon, no longer the 22-year old youth he was when he and a couple of dozen other Aazhoodena people entered Ipperwash Provincial Park at the end of the Labour Day weekend in 1995, was the only witness who appeared on Sept. 29 at the public inquiry.

Now 31, Simon saw his testimony interrupted at noon by the in-camera session that was to hear the motion by the George family's lawyers.

But before his testimony was cut short, Simon said a few things that got those same lawyers excited. In response to commission counsel Susan M. Vella's detailed questioning about the events of Sept. 4, 5 and 6, 1995 when the Stony Pointers moved from Camp Ipperwash to peacefully occupy the adjacent Ipperwash Provincial Park, Simon made several references to government authorities co-operating with their occupation. He mentioned that provincial Ministry of Natural Resources officials who looked after the park turned over the gate keys to the occupiers and that a large concrete barrier blocking an access road had been pushed aside "not by us."

He also said that once the occupiers entered buildings in the park and set off alarms, police officer telephoned and provided the codes that would turn the alarms off.

The Stony Pointers have occupied the army base since the mid-1980s. It is located on their traditional lands. The government ha expropriated the land during the Second World War with the promise that it would be returned after the war was over. More than 40 years later, their land had not been returned, so the Stony Pointers took over the base and established a community that continues to exist today.

In 1995, concerned about a traditional burial ground on or near the park lands, they decided to occupy the park to draw attention to their concerns. They waited until after the long holiday weekend was over and made their move. Three days later, Dudley George was dead, shot by OPP Acting Sgt. Kenneth Deane.

Orkin was astounded by Simon's testimony. He viewed the co-operation of government officials, including the police officer who provided the alarm codes, as very significant.

"This is important stuff," he told Birchbark. "Forget about colour of right, this was authorization. So what was everyone else doing evicting them when they were authorized?"

"We've never heard this before," said Klippenstein, who also saw this information as significant.

Holding an eagle feather throughout his testimony, Simon later told the inquiry about an incident that occurred on the second day of the occupation. A group of the Stony Point people took several picnic tables outside the park fence to a sandy parking area. They built a bonfire and sat around it on the tables. An officer came and told them to move.

They refused. Minutes later a police cruiser rammed one of the tables, scattering the people sitting on it, he said.

That caused an altercation. The Native people began pelting the car with rocks and picked up the table and dumped it on the hood of the cruiser. A car window was shattered and both sides retreated.

Fifteen to 20 minutes later, a number of police officers in formation approached.

"It seemed like they wanted to pick a fight," said Marlin Simon.

He said the officers stood outside the fence and taunted the Native people.

"'Who's gonna be the first one,'" Simon saidone officer asked. "Then he looked at Dudley and he said, 'Dudley, you're going to be the first one.' I reached down and got some sand and threw it in his face. The police started using mace."

He said he was standing about a foot away from Dudley when this happened. He was asked to describe the officer. He said he was medium height, balding and wearing a baseball cap, stocky, with sergeant stripes and "lighter color eyes."

Vella did not ask Simon about the mood of the officer who rammed the picnic table. Since the testimony was interrupted, it may come up later. But it was not clear if Simon was suggesting that the officer was executing a strategic move under orders or was acting out of anger on his own.

Later, Simon was asked about weapons in the camp. He said there were no guns, just rocks, clubs and baseball bats "for self defense." Under further questioning, he mentioned that a helicopter was in the air over the park.

Vella asked him to describe it.

"It was big and yellow and it had a door open," he said. "A guy with a big camera was sitting in the door."

He said the helicopter was flying so low that it was causing things to be blown around on the ground and creating dust storms. At one point, he said, it hovered about five metres (15 feet) above the ground.

"They were definitely low enough that you could throw something at it," he said.

When Dudley George was shot, the original OPP version of events was that they were returning fire. Later, the OPP justified the use of a paramilitary unit against such a small group that included Elders and children by saying they had intelligence there were weapons in the park.

The low flying helicopter is not consistent with that assertion.

"Just about everything the police did around the park is completely inconsistent with a real fear of guns in the park," Klippenstein told Birchbark.

"From flying helicopters low enough to make dust storms on the ground to marching 40 to 50 officers abreast a them in the dark. We think the weapons claim is a cover for the rest of the things that the police and the Ontario government did terribly wrong. The police have never retracted their claim that they were shot at, by the way, and it's an outrage."

The inquiry will continue, moving back and forth between Toronto and Forest, a small town about 40 km northeast of Sarnia and about 20 km away from Ipperwash.

On another front, the battle for disclosure of information from the OPP and Ontario's Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services continues.

CBC news is trying to get photos and videotapes, some possibly taken from that helicopter, released to the public. The police and government are fighting that attempt. Ontario's assistant Information and Privacy Commissioner, Tom Mitchinson, is the referee.

Mitchinson recently ordered all OPP members who had anything to do in any way with evidence related to Ipperwash to attend his office personally and sign affidavits outlining everything they did in connection with processing or storing that evidence.

He also had a number of questions about missing sections of videotaped evidence that had been produced previously. OPP Commissioner Gwen Boniface requested that Mitchinson allow the RCMP to do an independent analysis of its methods so it could provide a report on technical reasons for gaps in the tapes and other matters. Once the report was completed it was turned over to Mitchinson but the ministry argued that Michinson could not turn it over to the CBC because it was a confidential government document.

He rejected that argument. The government has applied for a judicial review, seeking to have that decision overturned. For now the information remains secret.