Photo: Memorial for Anthony “Dudley” George on the beach at Stoney Point known as Ipperwash. Photo from Anishinabek News.
Indigenous land defender Dudley George was shot by an Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) officer on September 6, 1995. George had been “struck in the chest by a hollow-tipped bullet from a submachine gun” and was “declared dead from massive internal bleeding” hours later in a hospital.
George had been participating in a re-occupation of Ipperwash Provincial Park in south-western Ontario.
George’s family was one of 18 families displaced from the Stony Point First Nation (about 75 kilometres north-west of London, Ontario) in 1942 when the federal government expropriated the land to build a military base. The government had promised to return the land after World War II, but at the time of George’s death, 53 years after that dispossession, the land was still occupied by the military.
George’s family moved back to Stony Point, then known as Camp Ipperwash, in 1993. After decades of writing letters, meetings and signing petitions, 35 land defenders began a reoccupation of Ipperwash Provincial Park on September 4, 1995.
Notably, the park contained burial grounds that the land defenders said were not being respected or protected.
On September 5, Ontario Premier Mike Harris met with several government officials. The provincial Attorney General later testified that Harris shouted: “I want the fucking Indians out of the park.” A recording also emerged of police officers discussing the premier’s view that the government had “tried to pacify and pander to these people far too long.”
George was shot the following day.
The reoccupation of the park continued and by September 9 the provincial police, further escalating the situation, requested assistance from the Canadian Forces, including two Huey helicopters to be placed on standby.
On September 10, the Peace Brigades International-North America Project (PBI-NAP) reported that it had received a verbal invitation to “be observers for First Nations people if needed; be present during discussions between the different groups as a nonpartisan witness; do accompaniment for anyone fearing further violence on the part of the police; write nonpartisan reports on what we witness and hear.”
By July/August 1996, PBI-NAP reported: “PBI has made three more visits to the area of Ipperwash.”
Lessons from the Ipperwash Inquiry
On November 12, 2003, a public inquiry was launched by the Ontario government under Liberal premier Dalton McGuinty.
It produced a four volume 1,533-page Ipperwash Inquiry Report released on May 30, 2007, that contained 100 recommendations.
PBI-Canada recalls that the Ipperwash Inquiry included recommendations on how Indigenous protests and occupations could be addressed to prevent the killing of another land defender
The Inquiry Report can be read here.
“Heavily armed raids” as a “national best practice”
The primary threat to the lives of Indigenous land defenders today arguably comes from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) Community Response Unit-British Columbia (CRU-BC).
CRU-BC is the new name for the Community-Industry Response Group (C-IRG), now under a systemic investigation by the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission (CRCC).
CBC has reported: “Between 2019 and 2021, the unit grabbed national attention for its heavily armed raids on Wet’suwet’en-led blockades as well as its Fairy Creek operation on Vancouver Island in 2021.”
And while the C-IRG/CRU-BC is focused in British Columbia, RCMP Staff Sgt. Kris Clark told The Tyee in early-2024 that C-IRG’s approach to public disorder has been adopted as a “national best practice”.
Video of RCMP C-IRG raid on Wet’suwet’en territory, November 19, 2021.
Ipperwash recommendations forgotten?
George died 31 years ago this coming September. He remains the only land defender killed in this country in modern history. The Inquiry into his death released its recommendations 19 years ago this coming May.
As the Canadian government seeks to “cut red tape and fast-track major nation-building projects” throughs its Major Projects Office, there is a likelihood of Indigenous resistance to these projects on their lands.
Can the Ipperwash recommendations be applied to the emerging situation on Gitanyow territory in northern British Columbia as land defenders their pledge to blockade the construction of the Prince Rupert Gas Transmission (PRGT) fracked gas pipeline?
Have the recommendations been implemented both provincially and federally?
Have they been forgotten?
Were they sufficient?
Are new practices and protocols needed?
PBI-Canada will be conducting an analysis on the lessons learned from the killing of George to contribute to ensuring that another Indigenous land and environmental defender isn’t killed in Canada.
