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In the recent period, two important cases have been before the
Canadian courts. One involved the September 5, 1995 shooting of Stoney
Point First Nation member Dudley George at Ipperwash Provincial Park
by Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) officer Sargeant Kenneth Deane.
The other case involves 15 individuals who participated in a struggle
of Shuswap Nation members at Gustafsen Lake (Ts Peten) in the summer
of 1995.
Sargeant Kenneth Deane was convicted of criminal negligence causing
death on April 28, 1997, only after a very active struggle was waged
to demand that justice be done. There was also a great deal of
evidence showing that contrary to the claims of the OPP, Dudley George
was unarmed when he was shot dead. On July 3, Deane was given a
two-year suspended sentence. While the crime for which he was
convicted carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment, Deane will
be "punished" with 180 hours of community service, while he retains
employment with the OPP.
In his April 28 ruling, Judge Hugh Fraser acknowledged that Deane knew
that Dudley George was unarmed when he shot him dead. Nevertheless, at
his sentencing, Judge Fraser all but declared Deane innocent, saying
Deane was "in every other way" an "exemplary officer." He was
described as a "highly competent officer," who was "lawfully carrying
out his duty as a police officer." "The decision to embark on this
ill-fated mission was not Sgt. Deane s," Fraser said, referring to the
OPP raid on the camp set up by Stoney Point First Nations members at
Ipperwash Provincial Park. Judge Fraser also said that Deane was not
responsible for the "faulty" intelligence reports the police receive
that the protesters were armed. "It's not for this tribunal to decide
where that intelligence originated, or why it was so inaccurate."
No such leniency has been shown in the Ts Peten case. In
pre-sentencing hearings, the state is calling for the harshest
possible punishment especially for Jones Ignace (Wolverine), a
Shushwap Nation elder and one of the leaders of the Ts Peten struggle.
Prosecutor Lance Bernard said Wolverine should be sent to jail for 16
to 23 years. In his sentencing brief to the judge, Bernard said that
the defendants were "terrorists" who had used illegal weapons to
threaten police. He said all those convicted of mischief had to be
sentenced within the context of a "serious over-criminal situation."
He said that those who carried firewood, cooked and did other domestic
chores were indispensable to those who "wielded weapons," and argued
they had to be sentenced accordingly. He proposed the rest of the
defendants should be sentenced to 3 to 5 years as a "deterrence."
In the implementation of its policy of turning the just struggles of
the Aboriginal peoples for the restoration of their hereditary rights
into "law and order" problems, there is a clear message: any
Aboriginal person who steps out of the place assigned to them by the
Canadian state is "fair game" for arrests, shootings, jailings and
every form of persecution, while those who implement the state's
policy will be protected. This is the way of the 19th century British
colonialists and these two cases show how very little has changed
since the 19th Century in terms of the treatment of Canada's
Aboriginal peoples by the Canadian state. This is the only
interpretation that can be given to the double standards of justice
being shown in both the Gustafsen Lake and the Ipperwash trials. The
Canadian people must condemn the Canadian state's brutal treatment of
Canada's Aboriginal peoples and step up the struggle for the
restoration of their hereditary rights.
CPC(M-L)
Shawgi Tell
Graduate School of Education
University at Buffalo
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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