Fantino's non-scandal

National Post Published: Wednesday, July 23, 2008

2008 has seen some truly lame "scandals." But even by the prevailing low standards, we are amazed that news editors can keep their faces straight as they breathlessly report this week's concocted pseudo-scandal involving Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) commissioner Julian Fantino.

The story involves Shawn Brant -- a freelance native troublemaker who, on June 29, 2007, put up a blockade near Deseronto, Ont., that shut down Ontario's Highway 401 and nearby rail lines. Within hours, the OPP duly confronted Mr. Brant's small group. Mr. Fantino threatened to get tough with the protesters, the protesters 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, cellphone 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.

Did Mr. Fantino threaten violence? No. The most fiery bits consist of the OPP commissioner threatening vaguely that, if the blockage isn't ended, Mr. Brant's world is "going to come crashing down," and that there will be "grave consequences" -- 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 Mr. Rosenthal, "grave consequences" was a code word for "death."

"Dudley George suffered 'grave consequences,' " Mr. Rosenthal declared in an interview, referring to the aboriginal man killed during violence precipitated by aboriginal protesters 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 Mr. 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 backs.

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