Ipperwash… Again

by John Thompson

10/13/03

It seems Ontario’s new government is ungracious in victory. McGuinty’s Grits seem ready to make good on a pledge to have a formal inquiry into the shooting of Dudley George in 1995, and swear that Mike Harris will be called to the stand.

They would be well advised instead to send in the OPP to finish the job and end this long running sore.

Ipperwash is a complex story and not easily summed up in a Toronto Star story or by ten minutes on the CBC — not that any of the reporters they ever sent there ever understood what was going.

In the briefest possible summary, Ipperwash concerns the former Stony Point Reserve, which was expropriated by the Canadian government in 1942 for use as an infantry training school. The former inhabitants had been transplanted to the already crowded Kettle Point Reserve, but hoped to return someday. Some 50 years later, they were still waiting.

As young Chippewa grew restless, bandleaders and elders decided to act in 1992 and began peaceful disciplined occupation of the military camp. While the occupation gathered a lot of followers, their leaders kept the protest confined to Chippewa — largely because they had a very clear idea of what could happen if the likes of the Mohawk Warriors or the equally criminal Oneida Peacekeepers showed up. These gangsters in camouflage bandanas were on the lookout for situations like this as a means of gathering power and a base for criminal operations like cigarette smuggling, gun running and other enterprises. At the time, the Oneida Peacekeepers and their leader Buck Doxtater were lurking about 30 minutes drive away, near London.

After two years, the Canadian Government agreed to all the demands of the occupiers: Stony Point would be returned to its original owners after an environmental cleanup was finished. In short, the issue was over, to the satisfaction of the Chippewa and Ottawa.

In the spring of 1995, the whole situation went to pot. "Standing" (status and respect in the community) is a vital concept among Canadian Indians; and the 1992-94 protest had given some to some youngsters and misfits like Glenn George, Dudley George, Rose Manning. Bored, idle and without standing again, these started an impromptu new protest when the environmental cleanup started in May 1995. Much to their surprise, the company backed off immediately, and a new occupation started.

This new occupation had no backing from traditional or elected bandleaders, nor much discipline; but they did let Buck Doxtater and the Oneida Peacekeepers join them. The presence of armed organized criminals made Ottawa very, very careful. As a result, over the summer of 1995, every time the protestors pushed, the authorities backed up and emboldened them more. Soon, Glenn George was entertaining thoughts about pushing even more, and this led to the confrontation with the OPP over a provincial park during which Dudley George was killed.

There are many questions to be answered (let alone asked) about that night, and some of the militants and gangsters on the Aboriginal side have escaped real scrutiny for eight years. In one of the great ironies of the trial of the OPP officer who shot Dudley George, Buck Doxtater was one of the crown witnesses… go figure.

With the death of Dudley, an amiable but poorly socialized man who was denigrated in life by the other occupiers and cynically turned into a much loved ‘martyr’ since, the situation has become a deadlock. Ottawa does not want to push things (for a start, we simply could not handle a situation like the 1990 Oka crisis); and the protestors know it.

The attraction of the continuing occupation is simple — free housing and a total lack of the usual constraints and obligations of band life. Also, the area has become a nexus for a variety of criminal activities. The Oneida Peacekeepers were still present as of four years ago, and apparently used Ipperwash as a centre for smuggled items (Doxtater used to move a lot of guns, and still might).

While Glenn George and others have played ‘mystic Indian’ to the hilt, the ‘sacred healing place’ he blathered about to credulous reporters has become cluttered up with stolen automobiles and once sizeable the deer herd has been shot out of existence. Since the environmental cleanup has never occurred, the land still belongs to the Department of National Defence — which is paying for power and water there. Which means, apparently, that our tax-dollars are paying for a major hydroponics marijuana lab.

If the new inquiry goes ahead, it had better be a full inquiry with a wide scope… or it will be utterly worthless.

John Thompson is President of the Mackenzie Institute which studies political instability and terrorism. He can be reached at: mackenzieinstitute@bellnet.ca