Brutality Canada

In Ontario, are Indian lives worth less?

October 31, 2000
From: Ann Pohl

RACISM IS A MAJOR FACTOR IN NO IPPERWASH INQUIRY

The Coalition for a Public Inquiry into Ipperwash has long recognized that racism plays a huge role in the failure of the Harris government to call an inquiry into the events surrounding the death of Dudley George at Ipperwash Provincial Park. "Racism" explains why the current Ontario government would NOT order an inquiry into the death of a peaceful landrights protestor, while ordering inquiries into:
 
· the knocking down and stunning of a provincial employees' union member, via a police club, at a Spring, 1996 protest at Queen's Park; and,
 
· the Walkerton water disaster, where - as with the Ipperwash case - there are criminal and civil justice matters proceeding concurrently through the courts.

Both the Walkerton and the OPSEU protest inquiries involved non-Aboriginal victims. At Ipperwash, the victim and the others immediately affected by the officially-sanctioned police violence, were Aboriginal persons. This evident racial diffrence explains why - since the Walkerton Inquiry was called - the Coalition for a Public Inquiry has been asking: "In Ontario, are Indian lives worth less?"

Racism is at the root of the denial of justice for Aboriginal Peoples generally. For this reason, the Coalition's current strategies focus on upcoming international opportunities to call Ontario and Canada to account n this racism, through the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination and the World Conference Against Racism.

The Coalition is grateful for the support it continues to get from allies on the continuing campaign for a full, impartial public inquiry into the tragic human rights abuses that occurred on September 6, 1995. Howard Hampton's appeal to the Ontario Human Rights Commission has netted a response that demonstrates just how wide-spread is the continuing concern about these events. The NDP leader's appeal is under Section 29.f. of the Ontario Human Rights Code, which states that the OHRC has authority: "to inquire into incidents of and conditions leading or tending to lead to tension or conflict based upon identification by a prohibited ground of discrimination and take appropriate action to eliminate the source of tension or conflict."

In response, OHRC Commissioner Keith Norton, a man whose political roots are the same as that of the govern-ing party, has had to admit that racism could be a fundmental explanation for the Harris government's failure to act on this vital social issue. Like the Ontario Ombudsman and the federal government before him, Mr. Norton has had to couch his remarks in an acknowledgement that he lacks the power to force the Premier to tell the truth.

The only other explanation is that Premier Harris and other senior officials are directly implicated in Ipperwash. If this is the explanation we must ultimately accept for the lack of an Ipperwash inquiry, then Ontarians must recognize that the absence of an inquiry represents a real abuse of state power compounded by an institutionalized, systemic racism that allows that abuse. Anyway you look at it, it's not a pretty picture. We won't give up and the truth will ultimately come out. Then we will learn the full reasons behind the Harris government's cover-up.

COALITION MEDIA REFER: Ann Pohl - 416-537-3520
 
NDP Media Contacts: Gil Hardy (416) 325-7118 or Sheila White (416) 325-2503

Coalition for a Public Inquiry into Ipperwash
Mail: Box 111, Station C, Toronto, On M6J 3M7
T: 416-537-3520 F: 416-538-2559
Email Ann Pohl

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