Dudley George

The inquiry is investigating the death of Dudley George. He died on Sept. 6, 1995, during a standoff between native protesters at Ipperwash Provincial Park and Ontario Provincial Police. George was the only native to be killed in a dispute over land in the 20th century.

George was among a group of about three dozen protesters who moved into the park on Sept. 4, 1995, to try to get action on a land claim.

George was 38 years old.

Sam George
Brother of Dudley George. Sam George was among the native protesters at Ipperwash Provincial Park the night Dudley was shot and killed.

Sam led the family's battle for answers to what happened on Sept. 6, 1995. For years, he pressed the provincial government to hold a public inquiry into his brother's death. The Conservative governments of Mike Harris and Ernie Eves refused the demand, arguing that the case remained before the courts. Sam George had offered to drop the wrongful death suit the family had filed if the government would call an inquiry.

In October 2003, that suit was settled and the newly elected Liberal government agreed to call the inquiry.

Pierre George
Another of Dudley's brothers. Pierre George was also one of the native protesters at Ipperwash the night of the shooting. He drove Dudley to the hospital in nearby Strathroy after the shooting.

"I drove into emerg and stopped the car. As soon as I got out I was grabbed from behind by the police and pushed face first into the brick wall of the hospital," he told a gathering in Kitchener, Ontario, five years later.

Justice Sidney Linden

Former chief justice of the Ontario Court of Justice. Days after he was sworn in as premier, Dalton McGuinty asked Linden to lead the inquiry into the events surrounding the death of Dudley George.

Linden was Toronto's first police complaints commissioner. His job was to investigate complaints from the public about the way they were treated by police officers. In 1987, he was appointed Ontario's first information and privacy commissioner.

In the five years before he was appointed to chair the Ipperwash inquiry, Linden served as Chair of the Board of Legal Aid Ontario.

Acting Sergeant Kenneth Deane

Deane was the Ontario Provincial Police officer who shot and killed Dudley George. Deane was eventually charged with criminal negligence causing death.

The Crown argued that Deane fired at unarmed protesters without provocation.

Deane maintained that he had seen muzzle flashes coming from a sandy berm and that he fired his rifle at the flashes. He said he saw a man with a rifle move from the sandy berm and hide down by a ditch. Deane said the man aimed his rifle at the police and that's when he fired three bullets at him.

The man was Dudley George, who was not armed.

Deane was convicted. He was sentenced to two years of community service. On Jan. 26, 2001, the Supreme Court of Canada rejected his appeal. More than a year after the court upheld his convictions, Deane resigned from the OPP.

Inspector Ron Fox
Fox was the liaison between the Ontario Provincial Police and the provincial government at the time of the Ipperwash standoff. He acted as an adviser to the government on First Nations affairs.

When he testified at the Ipperwash Inquiry, Fox expressed his concern at the time of the standoff over the way the Harris government seemed to view the situation. Part of a taped telephone conversation with his superior was played at the inquiry.

"We're dealing with a real redneck government," Fox said, after a meeting with then premier Harris, several cabinet ministers and deputy ministers. "They just are in love with guns. There's no question. They don't give a shit less about Indians."

Inspector John Carson

Carson was the highest-ranking OPP officer on the scene at Ipperwash at the time of the standoff. He was an acting superintendent and the incident commander on the scene at the time of Dudley George's death.

In 1993 Carson was assigned to oversee the OPP response to an ongoing occupation of Canadian Forces Base Ipperwash by local natives. The land had been taken from the natives during the Second World War and was to have been returned to them when the government no longer needed it. Carson received the assignment because he was familiar with the background of the case and had dealings with some of the principal players.

Two years later, Carson was given the same job at Ipperwash Provincial Park, when the occupation spread there. It would have been his job to give the order for the police to move in on the protesters the night of Sept. 6, 1995.

Carson is currently the deputy commissioner of the OPP.

Mike Harris

Former premier of Ontario. Harris became premier just a few months before the Ipperwash standoff. He has denied ordering police to end the standoff. He has also denied using profanities to describe the Indians who occupied the provincial park.

Harris repeatedly denied requests by the George family to order a public inquiry into the events leading to the death of Dudley George. He argued that the case remained before the courts while he was premier.

Harris, the Ipperwash Inquiry's 100th witness, testified he knew that his government had no authority to intervene in police matters during the standoff.

Charles Harnick

Former Ontario attorney general. Harnick was one of the key government ministers whose responsibility included dealing with the occupation of Ipperwash Provincial Park.

During dramatic testimony before the inquiry, Harnick said that at a high-level meeting, then premier Mike Harris said: "I want the f****** Indians out of the park."

Harnick denied, however, that Harris ordered him to get native occupiers "out of the park within 24 hours."

Chris Hodgson

Former Ontario natural resources minister. Hodgson also held responsibility for some native issues as natural resources minister.

Hodgson denied that former premier Mike Harris used profane language during a high-level meeting (as former attorney general Charles Harnick testified).

Hodgson blamed the federal government for the troubles at Ipperwash. He told the inquiry that he believes the standoff would not have happened if Ottawa had honoured a pledge to return land to local natives.

Bob Runciman
Former Ontario solicitor general. Runciman told the inquiry that he, too, did not hear former premier Mike Harris utter the alleged profanity.

Runciman also told the inquiry that, as a rule, he "kept his nose out of police operations." With respect to the occupation of Ipperwash Provincial Park, he said his assistant warned staff at the Ministry of Natural Resources, the attorney general's office and the premier's office to do the same.

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