Premier met with OPP head

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Ontario Premier Mike Harris, after almost five years of claiming to have had no involvement whatsoever with the events that led to the death of Dudley George at admitted in late December that he met with the commissioner of the Ontario Provincial Police on the day George was shot to discuss the situation at Ipperwash Provincial Park.

A document obtained by lawyers representing the George family shows that the deputy attorney general of the province was also at the meeting and argued that the government should not interfere with the police.

NDP leader Howard Hampton suggests the document shows the premier directed the police operation that led to the shooting of land claim protestor.

One page out of the approximately 35,000 pages of documents the government of Ontario has turned over to the George family lawyers was a handwritten note, dated the day of the shooting. It records a meeting in the Cabinet room at the Ontario legislature involving Premier Mike Harris, the then Minister of Natural Resources Chris Hodgson (now chair of the Management Board of the Ontario government) and OPP Commissioner Thomas O'Grady.

Hampton questioned Harris in the legislature.

"This is a copy of the Sept. 6, 1995 memo, the day on which Dudley George was killed. Premier, this memo states that the OPP commissioner was called into the meeting. It states that Larry Taman, who was then the deputy attorney general was at the meeting, that he was quite eloquent and forceful. He cautioned about rushing into the situation with an ex parte [emergency] injunction. He cautioned about interference with police discretion. But then the memo says, 'But premier and Hodgson came out strong . . . decision to go ex parte appeared to have already been made."

"Premier, what I find interesting about this memo is, can you tell us why it was only made available this summer, five years after Dudley George was killed?

"Premier, I want to ask you this: You've always maintained that decisions to interfere at Ipperwash, decisions to get an ex parte injunction, were made not by your government, but this memo pretty clearly indicates that the OPP commissioner was called into the meeting, that you and your Cabinet colleagues were warned, "Don't interfere with police discretion, don't force an ex parte injunction," and then it says, "But premier and Hodgson came out strong." I think any reasonable person would conclude that you and Mr. Hodgson directly interfered, that you and Mr. Hodgson made the decision over the heads of the OPP commissioner and the deputy attorney general to directly interfere with Ipperwash. If that's not the right conclusion, premier, please give us your explanation."

Harris' response did not answer many of Hampton's specific questions.

"As I have indicated publicly on many occasions over the last number of years, the OPP requested an injunction and we responded to their request for the ex parte injunction." he said. "Unfortunately, as you know, that injunction was never acted upon because of a tragedy that intervened, a tragedy that has been a court case, a tragedy that's now part of a civil suit. The document you have, one we made available, is part of that court case. It clearly indicates that we were asked for an injunction; we responded with an injunction."

The wrongful death lawsuit filed by members of the George family alleges that Harris directly influenced the decision to employ force to end the occupation of the provincial park. Family lawyer Murray Klippenstein believes this is a crucial piece of evidence in the lawsuit.

"The head of the government meets with the head of the police to deal on a specific case in a police state," he said. "But in a democracy, the head of the government doesn't tell the police what to do on specific incidents."