Lee Greenberg, Canwest News Service
Published:
Ontario Provincial Police Commissioner Julian Fantino should resign after making "threatening, inflammatory" comments to a native leader during a standoff last summer, according to the provincial NDP.
Peter Kormos, a Southern Ontario MPP and a frequent critic of Commissioner Fantino, said the province's top officer was contravening the spirit of the Ipperwash report when he threatened activist Shawn Brant by saying he would do "everything I can, within your community and everywhere else, to destroy your reputation."
"He's crossed the line once again," Mr. Kormos said yesterday in an interview. "And this time, with his bombastic Rambo rhetoric, he has gone too far."
The comments were made during telephone conversations between Commissioner Fantino and Mr. Brant in June, 2007, when Mr. Brant led a blockade of Highway 401 and a rail line near the
The comments were released last week during a preliminary hearing for Mr. Brant, who faces charges stemming from his alleged involvement in the aboriginal day of action protests.
Mr. Kormos said Commissioner Fantino's behaviour flies in the face of the Ipperwash report, which issued guidelines aimed at improving relations between the province and native communities. The report followed an inquiry into the OPP's handling of a native protest in 1995 at
Instead of seeking to calm the situation during last year's blockade, Mr. Kormos said, Commissioner Fantino acted like a bully.
Commissioner Fantino tells Mr. Brant at one point: "Shawn, your whole world's going to come crashing down on this issue."
Mr. Brant's lawyer, Peter Rosenthal, has called for Commissioner Fantino to be disciplined over the comments.
Reached on vacation this weekend, Commissioner Fantino reportedly called the media fire-storm ignited by his taped remarks "self-serving nonsense."
Mr. Kormos said that response is yet another sign the OPP Commissioner is unable to recognize errors.
"Commissioner Fantino should either resign or be fired," he said in an interview. "We just can't afford to have this continue to go on. There's far too much at stake."
Premier Dalton McGuinty has backed the OPP chief in the wake of the released audio recordings, saying Commissioner Fantino has his confidence -- and that he believes he has done well in a difficult job.