CHRISTINA BLIZZARD
The Toronto Sun
Wed, August 2, 2006
It's a bit like the plot of one of those high-class British murder mysteries: Was she pushed or did she jump?
That's the question for Miss Marple after the surprise resignation of OPP commissioner Gwen Boniface last Friday.
Boniface has been under fire from rank-and-file officers over the handling of the Caledonia standoff with native protesters. Many of them believe she simply didn't provide enough leadership to the force during the crisis.
In my column June 16, I quoted Karl Walsh, president of the Ontario Provincial Police Association, saying cops felt they were like "deer in the headlights" in managing the Caledonia situation. With the Ipperwash inquiry into the 1995 shooting death of native protester Dudley George still fresh in everyone's minds, Walsh said cops on the ground in Caledonia worried that the OPP's senior ranks might not support them under similar circumstances.
"They ask, if I do hurt or kill someone, is the force going to be behind me? Is the commissioner going to be behind me? Is my association going to be behind me? Is the government going to be behind me?" he said at the time.
What burned him most was that cops had been assaulted -- with apparent impunity. He wrote to Attorney General Michael Bryant complaining about one incident where four people, all natives, were arrested. But he says three of the four failed to show up for a scheduled court appearance and the one who did appear argued that the law didn't apply to him.
Walsh was taking the high road yesterday, wishing Boniface well. The fact is, though, that a court order is a court order. Cops can't pick and chose which ones they are going to enforce. They are there to apply the law evenly.
"Unfortunately, her accomplishments were overshadowed by Caledonia, but they speak for themselves," he said.
Opposition leader John Tory was asked about Boniface's departure during a visit to Caledonia on Monday. He made the point that this amounts to an odd "missing person" report.
"When somebody disappears suddenly on a Friday morning, usually you phone police," he said.
"In this case, it was the police commissioner who disappeared early on a Friday morning." Tory added that while Boniface had put in a long and distinguished career with the OPP, "I don't think there is any question but that this whole series of incidents involving her must have had some connection to Caledonia."
What frustrated some rank-and-file officers and many in the community is that from the beginning of the standoff, the OPP seemed to be taking a hands-off approach.
The court order authorizing cops to remove the protesters from the site of the housing development was never enforced. In fact, last week, Justice David Marshall called representatives from the OPP, the ministry of the attorney general and the aboriginal demonstrators into court to find out why his order has been ignored.
Boniface could not be reached for comment yesterday.
Dalton McGuinty's government paid $12.3 million to buy the disputed land from the developers and put it in trust while the issue of who owns it is hammered out.
But the protesters are still occupying the land. Tory said on Monday that the occupiers plan to sell cigarettes from a small hut on the property -- a move that Darrell Doxtdator, an adviser to Six Nations Chief David General, could not confirm.
It would make economic sense for the band to do that. After all, with the government hiking the price of legal cigarettes to the stratosphere, an underground economy in native cigarettes is flourishing. Your tax dollars at work.
Look on the bright side, though. Perhaps they could put a casino on the site.