One Dead Indian: The Premier, the Police and the Ipperwash Crisis

J.R. (Jim) Miller is Canada Research Chair of History at the University
of Saskatchewan. He is the author of Skyscrapers Hide in the Heavens: A
History of Indian-White Relations in Canada and co-editor of the
Canadian Historical Review.

When Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) marched on Indians occupying
Ipperwash Provincial Park on September 6, 1995, they killed a local
Indian and touched off an enduring controversy. Peter Edwards, who
covered the story for The Toronto Star, has provided a journalistic
account of the killing of Dudley George, with a lengthy background and
even longer aftermath, that is both informative and gripping. One Dead
Indian provides a detailed treatment of the confrontation that resulted
in George’s death and then sketches the history that lay behind the
affair.

The Stoney Point First Nation had their reserve confiscated for
military purposes by the Crown under the War Measures Act in 1942, being
promised that it would be returned to them following peace. In the
meantime, the Stoney Point population was dumped onto Kettle Point
reserve, resulting in tensions and social problems that bedeviled both
communities. Repeated efforts to secure restoration of the Stoney Point
reserve failed, and in 1993 a number of “Stoney Pointers” moved onto
the military base. At the end of the Labor Day weekend in 1995, they
raised the stakes in their dispute by taking over the adjacent
provincial park. Unfortunately for them, the recently elected Ontario
Conservative government was not prepared to wait while the OPP followed
their usual procedures for ending confrontations by negotiation.
Instead, according to Edwards’s account, figures close to the premier,
if not Mike Harris himself, pressured the OPP to evict the park’s
occupiers. The result was the police assault, the death of Dudley
George, and an ongoing controversy over the role of the premier and his
government in the affair.

Edwards’s coverage is exhaustive and persuasive. He demonstrates how
few of the occupiers faced charges and even fewer were convicted. As
well, he details how Harris’s circle avoided a public inquiry into the
events that led to Dudley George’s death. One Dead Indian makes
compelling reading and is likely to convince most readers that Mike
Harris will have a lot of explaining to do if an inquiry into Dudley
George’s death ever occurs.