United Nations Should Adjucate Say

Stoney Point Aazhoodena

Written by Stephen Salaff
Thursday, 19 April 2007
“On Monday September 4. 1995, Labor Day,
Ipperwash Provincial Park was to be closed for the
season… some Stoney Point people re-occupied
Ipperwash Provincial Park. Their action was
motivated by the knowledge that there were burial
sites of their ancestors located on that property, as
well as by the belief that these treaty lands
belonged to them.”
Thus Peter Rosenthal and Jackie Esmonde,
lawyers for the Aazhoodena community and
George Family Group, explicated the political
assassination of unarmed First Nations activist
Dudley George in their final submission to the
Ipperwash Inquiry.
The counsels continued: “Three months earlier, in
June 1995, Mike Harris had taken office as
Premier of Ontario. The basic attitude of Premier
Harris was that ‘First Nations people have been
pandered to for too long.’”
“At a meeting of several members of his Cabinet
and others that took place on September 6,
Premier Harris expressed annoyance that the
Ontario Provincial Police had not prevented the
Stoney Pointers from regaining Ipperwash
Provincial Park. He loudly proclaimed ‘I want the
fucking Indians out of the Park.’”
“[OPP] Tactical Response Unit team member
Acting Sergeant Kenneth Deane later claimed that
he saw Dudley George scanning the crowd with a
rifle. Deane shot and killed Dudley George. Deane
was subsequently charged with criminal
negligence causing death. The judge hearing the
case concluded: ‘I find that the accused Kenneth
Deane knew that Anthony O’Brien Dudley George
did not have any firearms on his person when he
shot and killed him. That the story of the rifle and
the muzzle flash was concocted ex post facto in an
ill fated attempt to disguise the fact that an
unarmed man had been shot.’”
“After killing Dudley George, the OPP officers left
the scene. Some of the Stoney Pointers
transported Dudley George to the army camp part
of Stoney Point. They put Dudley in a car
belonging to his brother Pierre George who,
accompanied by Dudley’s sister Caroline George
and Dudley George’s nephew J.T. Cousins, drove
towards Strathroy Hospital. En-route, one of the
tires on the car went flat. After calling an
ambulance but then getting discouraged when it
failed to arrive after some time, they drove
towards Strathroy on the flat tire. The rubber fell
off the tire; they continued driving, with sparks
flying from the steel wheel of the car. They
eventually arrived at Strathroy Hospital. As they
got out of the car and prepared to carry Dudley
into the hospital, police officers roughly grabbed
them and placed them under arrest. Dudley was
examined by doctors at the hospital but could not
be saved. Pierre and Caroline George were held in
jail overnight; they were released the next
afternoon without charges being laid.”
The Inquiry Commissioner is expected shortly to
issue his report - www.ipperwashinquiry.ca. “We
anticipate report publication some time in April, “
Rosenthal told The Activist.
The extent to which Inquiry Commissioner Justice
Sidney Linden will recommend as fact Rosenthal’s
brief for the Aazhoodena and George Family
Group is uncertain. Also problematic is the
subsequent response to the Linden report by the
McGuinty Government of Ontario, which followed
the Harris regime and established the Inquiry in
November 2003 under Ontario’s Public Inquiries
Act.
Rosenthal advocates: “The Government of Canada
should immediately return the former Camp
Ipperwash lands to the care, control and
ownership of the Stoney Point First Nation. The
Government of Canada should apologize for the
appropriation of the Stoney Point reserve in 1942.
The Government of Canada should suitably
compensate the descendents of those displaced by
the 1942 relocation of the Stoney Point people to
that reserve. The Government of Canada should
relinquish all claims it may have to the property
known as Ipperwash Provincial Park. The
Government of Ontario should return the care,
control and ownership of the property known as
Ipperwash Provincial Park to the Stoney Point
First Nation.
In future, the Aazhoodena and George Family
Group urge: “Where a First Nations group asserts
that it is an independent First Nation with an
interest in a land claim or assertion of an
Aboriginal or treaty right, the Governments of
Canada and Ontario should treat these claims as
they would any other formal land claims or
assertion of an Aboriginal or treaty right, even if
the said First Nations group does not have formal
status in Canadian law at the time; The
Governments of Canada and Ontario should
ensure… an effective process for resolving land
claims and disputes over Aboriginal and treaty
rights… [The process] should be timely, fair and
perceived by all parities to be fair; … should
address the underlying grievances behind the
claim and contribute to reconciliations between
First Nations and the Crown ... should take into
account the division of responsibilities between
the federal and provincial governments, without
allowing that division to cause delays in the
settlement of claims; … should protect the
interests of the general public; and … should
address systemic disincentives that discourage
governments from negotiating settlements in a
timely manner.”
The Stoney Point Aazhoodena recommendations
continue: “Negotiations between equally
resourced parties should be the primary method
for resolving disputes between First Nations and
the Governments of Canada and Ontario over land
claims or the assertions of Aboriginal and/or
treaty rights, with access to a fully independent
tribunal to assist the negotiation process where
impasses arise between the parties.”
Finally, “Recognizing that First Nations in Canada
are nations that have not lost their sovereignty,
and that the colonizing of Canada was based on a
partnership with First Nations peoples, the
Governments of Canada and Ontario should agree
that any dispute with a First Nation over a land
claim or the assertion of an Aboriginal and/or
treaty right can, should the First Nation so
request, be adjudicated by an international body
or organization, such as the International Court,
the United Nations or the Organization of
American States.”
Stephen Salaff writes on coalitions between social
justice and environmental protection movements
and Canadian Aboriginal communities.
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