[BRIEF NOTE] The quality of our leaders

[rfmcdonald]

The Ipperwash Inquiry is a public tribunal set up to investigate the aftermath of the Ipperwash Crisis of 1995, when Ojibway of the Stoney Creek band set up a blockade of Ipperwash Provincial Park to protest the government's continued occupation of historical Ojibway territory including a burial ground. The crisis ended brutally, with the death of protester Dudley George after he was shot with a hollow-point bullet by a policeman. The inquiry was set up after the end of Ontario's decade of Conservative government, inaugurated by the polarizing but precedent-setting Premier Mike Harris. Last November, former attorney general Charles Harnick quoted Mike Harris as having said "Get the fucking Indians out of the park." Indeed they did, with shades of Henry II: "Will no one rid us of a troublesome red man?"