IPPERWASH: A CANADIAN TRAGEDY
Monday September 20, 2004 at 10pm ET/PT
repeating Monday July 25, 2005 at 10pm ET/PT
repeating Saturday July 30, 2005 at 10pm ET/PT

"This one cop pointed right at Dudley and said, 'Come on out Dudley, you're going tobe the first.' I was standing right there beside him when they said that."
                                                                                 -David George, Stoney Point resident
"The phone went dead right after the shooting and the ambulances that were close by left.  The cops knew there was shooting.  Why didn't they tell the people in the ambulances to hold on, somebody could be hurt." -Robert Issacs, Stoney Point supporter

This is the story that for almost nine years officials did not want to hear-the role of the Ontario Provincial Police in the death native protester Dudley George. In September, 1995, he became the only Aboriginal person in Canada killed by police during a land claims dispute in the twentieth century.   Ipperwash: A Canadian Tragedy is a powerful point-of-view documentary, a real-life drama about what happened in an Ontario provincial park.  It highlights gripping, and heart-wrenching, never-before-seen interviews with eyewitnesses given only six months after George's death.

This month as the Ontario Provincial Government continues its inquiry into the events at Ipperwash, where a land claims dispute led to conflict and the death of Dudley George. On Labour Day, 1995, a small group of First Nations men, women, and children quietly occupied Ipperwash Provincial Park as it closed for the season. They claimed the Ontario government had failed in its promise to protect an ancestral burial ground in the park. Then about 30 protesters built barricades to underline their land claim and to protest the destruction of the burial ground. Dudley George was one of those protesters. Over the next two days, there would be a huge police buildup that ended in a deadly confrontation.

For  Ipperwash: A Canadian Tragedy, filmmakers John and Joan Goldi captured eyewitness accounts from members of the First Nations who were in the park that night, including many of George's family members.  His sister and brother, Cully and Pierre, tell the tragic story of their desperate ride to the Strathroy hospital, 60 km away, with their dying brother in a car.  They say no ambulance ever came, despite a 911 operator's promise that it was on its way.

Ipperwash: A Canadian Tragedy is produced by Goldi Productions Ltd. for CBC Newsworld.