CAROLINE ALPHONSO AND KATE HAMMER
From Saturday's Globe and Mail
July 18, 2008 at 10:13 PM EDT
Ontario Provincial Police Commissioner Julian Fantino was personally involved in a police operation against native protesters last summer in which a wiretap was set up without a court order and in which the Commissioner took over telephone negotiations with a native activist, at times threatening him.
The evidence and wiretap transcripts from Mohawk activist Shawn Brant's preliminary hearing were made public Friday night after a whirlwind day in which the documents were unsealed by a courthouse in Napanee, Ont., at the request of a news media outlet, and then sealed again that afternoon by a Court of Appeal judge only to be reopened by evening.
The transcripts reveal that Commissioner Fantino repeatedly called Mr. Brant through the midnight hours and early in the morning, even interrupting conversations with the specially trained negotiators who were on the scene working to peacefully end the blockade of parts of Highway 401 and a railway line near Kingston.
The at-times heated comments by the province's top police officer contrast much of the spirit of the force's own conduct guidelines that were put in place to avoid a repeat of the 1995 Ipperwash Provincial Park confrontation, where native protester Dudley George died at the hands of police.
The wiretap transcripts showed Commissioner Fantino telling Mr. Brant that “your whole world's gonna come crashing down,” and, “I don't wanna get on your bad side but you're gonna force me to do everything I can within your community and everywhere else to destroy your reputation.”
At one point, Commissioner Fantino said: “Shawn we're not negotiating any more we've done it all night I'm now telling you for the sake of, uh, all that's decent and holy and the things you're trying to achieve and … to ensure that the reputation and the credibility of … First Nations people, which I think is being very severely damaged … I'm now telling you pull the plug or you will suffer grave consequences.”
In his testimony in August, also released Friday, Commissioner Fantino is asked by Mr. Brant's lawyer about the wiretap put on his client's cellphone without judicial authorization. He indicated that a wiretap can be obtained in an “emergency,” and there is a section of the Criminal Code that allows for it. But he said that in his years as a police officer he had never initiated one before.
On Friday, Mr. Brant called the wiretaps “an unjust invasion into my space” that were ultimately important because the transcripts of his phone conversations revealed Commissioner Fantino's “racial intolerance” and threats.
“I don't believe I warrant the wrath of the Commissioner of the OPP and the entire provincial police force because we want redress to social issues like drinking water and suicides and poverty,” Mr. Brant said in an interview.
Commissioner Fantino was heading on vacation and unable for comment. OPP Sergeant Kristine Rae said the force would not comment because the matter is before the courts. Mr. Brant's lawyer indicated that the Crown's initial submission for a publication ban was requested as a protection of his client's right to a fair trial, but he didn't feel the native activist was the one being protected by the ban.
“It's very important that everything comes out so that the public and politicians can judge the behaviour of the OPP in light of the recommendations that stemmed from the Ipperwash inquiry,” said lawyer Peter Rosenthal.
The trial of Mr. Brant, which is expected to begin in January, stems from last summer's blockade of parts of Highway 401 and a railway line.
Mr. Brant, from the Tyendinaga reserve near Deseronto, Ont., is charged with counts of mischief and breach of bail.
In a June, 2007, interview with CTV's Mike Duffy after the end of the blockade, Commissioner Fantino took credit for ending the standoff, even though in the wiretap conversation he tells Mr. Brant that he was going to give the native leader full credit.
“And that's really the dialogue that I had with Mr. Brant for all of the time that I spoke with him during the night today, and we got some things done, other things we didn't get done, but we did the best we could and now of course the ultimate goal for me and all of us, the police here, was to ensure that we came out of this without any escalation, and that we didn't have any injuries or spill any blood on anyone's part,” Commissioner Fantino said.
At the premiers' annual meeting in Quebec City on Friday, Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty said he had the utmost confidence in Commissioner Fantino's work.
“He has performed heroically and arguably under some of the most difficult circumstances when it comes to our province's relationship with our aboriginal communities. And he has throughout found a way to keep the temperature down and to follow some of the guidelines set out through the Ipperwash commission,” he said.
In what turned out to be a roller-coaster day of court proceedings Friday, an application by the CBC to remove the publication ban was granted in a Napanee courthouse in the morning.
Crown lawyers moved quickly to quash the publication of evidence. In a two-page handwritten decision, Madam Justice Gloria Epstein of the Ontario Court of Appeal granted a temporary reinstatement of the publication ban and wrote that if news media are allowed to publish evidence the Crown seeks to protect, the “genie will be out of the bottle.”
The unusually speedy appeal process left Mr. Brant and CBC lawyers fuming. They went back to the judge, who again removed the ban after considering that the evidence had already been released earlier in the day and posted on various news media websites. She also noted that Mr. Brant supported the release of the transcripts so there was no harm to him receiving a fair trial.