Jonathan Kay on Shawn Brant and Julian Fantino: This has got to be the most ridiculous 'scandal' in recent memory

Posted: July 22, 2008, 4:15 PM by Jonathan Kay

National Post

2008 has seen some truly lame “scandals.” (Anyone remember Cadmanscam?) But that’s what you get when news is slow, and you’ve got a left-wing Toronto media looking to sink a Conservative minority government.

Even by the prevailing low standards, however, I am amazed that news editors can keep their faces straight as they breathlessly pimp this week’s concocted pseudo-scandal involving OPP Commissioner Julian Fantino.

The story involves Shawn Brant — a man routinely described in the media as a “Mowhawk leader,” but is in fact is a freelance troublemaker whose protest stunts have been disowned by legitimate native leaders. On June 29, 2007, Mr. Brant and a small group of similarly-minded native G.I. Joe dress-up types inconvenienced tens of thousands of commuters when their blockade shut down Ontario’s Highway 401 and nearby rail lines. Mr. Brant, who has been charged numerous times for such offences as assault and illegal weapons possession, currently faces 12 years in prison for his role in last year’s protest.

It’s the government’s role to keep the roads and railways clear — and so, within hours, the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) duly confronted Mr. Brant’s small group. The chronology went like this: Mr. Fantino threatened to get tough with the protestors, the protestors backed down, Highway 401 and the CN railway were reopened, charges were laid against the alleged criminals, and no one got hurt. In short, everything went exactly the way one would hope. Textbook policing.

But apparently, that story is too boring for the Canadian media. So a “scandal” emerged on Friday, when recordings of June 29, 2007 cell phone conversations between Messrs. Brant and Fantino were released. And — horror of horrors — Mr. Fantino can be heard to threaten repercussions if the illegal blockade didn’t come down.

Imagine that: an officer of the law telling a criminal suspect that violating the criminal code will carry consequences.

Did Mr. Fantino threaten violence? No. The most fiery bits — the ones trotted out by an Ontario New Democratic Party calling for Mr. Fantino’s resignation — consist of the OPP commissioner threatening vaguely that, if the blockage isn’t ended, Mr. Brant’s world is “going to come crashing down,” that there will be “grave consequences,” and that the police will “destroy [Brant’s] reputation” — all threats that would seem to describe arrest and conviction, not any sort of brutality.

If there is any scandal in this episode, it is the uncritical manner in which the media has parroted the maudlin hysteria of Mr. Brant’s lawyer — a certain Peter Rosenthal.

According to Rosenthal, “grave consequences” was a code word for “death.”

“Dudley George suffered ‘grave consequences,’ ” Mr. Rosenthal declared in a media interview, referring to the aboriginal man killed during violence precipitated by aboriginal protestors at Ipperwash Provincial Park in 1995. “If somebody does read that transcripts, who’s aware of Ipperwash, they would recognize that there’s danger in allowing Fantino to be head of OPP and the danger we talk about is life and death.”

What absolute nonsense: The only "danger" at issue here is the risk of this country being overrun by native protests in the face of cops who have both hands tied behind their back. This is why endless stand-offs in Caledonia, Ont. and elsewhere are permitted to continue: Our elites are now so anti-cop that they will seek to portray a good police officer as a brute even when all he does is threaten criminals with arrest.

How exactly did this increasingly wimpy nation get to a point where it is considered “scandalous” for a police officer to use B-movie tough talk to eject thugs from public property? More to the point: Why are our media colleagues cheerleading this embarrassing phenomenon?