Hodgson interfered, public inquiry told

FOREST, ONT.—

Former natural resources minister Chris Hodgson improperly interfered with police operations in the hours before a native activist was killed at Ipperwash Provincial Park, a police inspector told a public inquiry yesterday. Hodgson sharply criticized Ontario Provincial Police officers for their handling of the native occupation of the park at a meeting on the day Anthony (Dudley) George was shot to death in a massive police operation, the inquiry heard.

“ He ( Hodgson) gave the impression that he was quite angry,” OPP Insp. Scott Patrick testified.

Stoney Point natives occupied the park on Sept. 4, 1995, saying it contained sacred burial grounds. Their claims were later upheld by Ottawa. Under questioning from Julian Falconer, a lawyer for Aboriginal Legal Services in Toronto, Patrick said he considered Hodgson’s sharp criticism of the OPP on Sept. 6, 1995, to be improper political interference in police operations. Hodgson criticized the OPP in then premier Mike Harris’s dining room at Queen’s Park, with the harsh words directed at Insp. Ron Fox, who was a liaison between the police and the solicitor general’s office, Patrick testified. Harris was at part of the session but was not there when Hodgson criticized the OPP, Patrick said. He said Hodgson had already been told by government lawyers that politicians can’t direct the police when he gave his sharp criticisms.

Patrick said he didn’t understand comments made by Harris in the dining room meeting on Sept. 6, when the former premier somehow connected the native park occupation with the Holocaust, in which 6 million Jews were slaughtered by the Nazis.

“ He indicated that this was a test, that they were a new government, and he said this is how things get started, and then he referenced the Holocaust,” Patrick told Justice Sidney Linden.