Mike Harris star witness at inquiry

Former Ontario premier Mike Harris maintains he did nothing wrong and played no role in the death of Dudley George.

During the last minutes of Harris' four-day appearance on the witness stand at the Ipperwash inquiry on Feb. 20, lawyer Julian Falconer, acting for Aboriginal Legal Services of Toronto, called him a liar.

The inquiry is being held to sort out the events that led to the fatal shooting of the Native land claim protester. Harris has been accused of attempting to influence the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP). It has been said the former premier exerted pressure on the force to be more aggressive with the protesters to resolve a dispute over a Native burial site that saw the occupation of Ipperwash Provincial Park during the last days of summer in 1995.

Harris, perhaps the most anticipated witness of the inquiry, testified that he and his executive assistant did not find out until more than a year later that several senior OPP officers who were on loan to the provincial government were present at a meeting the morning Dudley George was shot, a meeting where it is alleged Harris told those participating "I want the fucking Indians out of the park." Harris testified that OPP Inspector Ron Fox was not introduced as a police officer, contradicting evidence provided by previous inquiry witnesses who were at the meeting.
Falconer told Harris he didn't believe him.

"I'm going to suggest to you that you and Deb Hutton, sir, were never shocked by Ron Fox's status as a police officer on the morning of May 29, 1996. That's my suggestion to you, sir," the lawyer said during cross-examination.

"I'm sorry, am I supposed to respond? You're saying I lied? I didn't lie. It's the truth," Harris replied.

"I am saying you lied, sir," said Falconer.

"Well, I hear you saying that, but you saying it doesn't make it so," the former premier said.
Since his recollection of the meeting was different from that of other witnesses, Falconer said, "either you have an extraordinarily poor memory or you concealed the dining room meeting meaningfully and intentionally. What do you say to that, sir?"

"I think you're wrong, sir," Harris said.

Falconer told him that Hutton had testified only that she didn't remember when she learned of Fox's identity.

"She seems to have forgot she was shocked, correct?" he asked.

"I believe she was surprised when she found out that the Mr. Fox that had been in meetings that she attended was an OPP officer, because I was surprised and she told me she didn't realize that either," Harris replied.

Falconer suggested that Harris was instead covering up his mistake with the OPP.

"I suggest, with respect, sir, that what really went through your mind is, to put it colloquially, 'I'm in a pickle, and the last thing I need to do is disclose that I was in a small boardroom with a liaison officer from the OPP,'" the lawyer said.

"Well, that's totally wrong and actually silly and ridiculous when I have testified that I am quite comfortable with the entire truth coming out in this inquiry," Harris said.

Sam George, the brother of Dudley who dropped his multi-million dollar wrongful death lawsuit against Harris and others when the inquiry was called, said he got what he expected during the long-awaited appearance of the former premier.

"I think it went pretty good. We got most of what we wanted out of him. We knew he wasn't going to give us any explosive statement," he said. "Some of the meetings would probably have never come to light if we hadn't forced it out through the civil process."

Sam's lawyers, Murray Klippenstein and Andrew Orkin, discovered almost a year after Dudley had been killed that Harris had attended the informal meeting, now referred to as "the dining room meeting," at the Ontario legislature. Testimony at the inquiry revealed that Harris passed up several opportunities to disclose that the meeting had taken place before it was discovered by the lawyers.

"He agreed that he had been a participant in a special Ipperwash meeting that was called in his own private boardroom or dining room in the premier's office, with about 14 ministers, executive assistants and deputy ministers," Klippenstein told Windspeaker shortly after Harris' testimony was completed. "He agreed that at that meeting that the government decided to fast-track court injunction proceedings on the somewhat unusual grounds of emergency and not give notice to the protesters. That was instead of the normal process of giving notice to the other party."

Lawyers for Aboriginal parties at the inquiry focussed on the suspicion that Harris and his executive assistant ordered immediate action against the protesters. Former Ontario cabinet minister Charles Harnick testified he heard Harris utter a racist obscenity at the dining room meeting.

"Mr. Harnick said that he had just come into the dining room when he heard the statement 'I want the fucking Indians out of the park' being spoken by you. And that after you made the statement the room went silent and that he felt you realized your statement was inappropriate," commission counsel Derry Miller asked Harris on the first day of his testimony.

Mike Harris repeatedly denied saying anything like that.

"The word, the adjective's not foreign to me but not the kind of language I would use at any kind of a meeting like the meeting we were at, not the kind of language that I ever think is appropriate even if I have used it from time to time. But certainly not at any meeting like this," Harris said.
Murray Klippenstein told this publication that there is plenty of evidence that the police were acting on the belief that the premier wanted immediate action when they started the paramilitary operation that led to the Dudley George fatality.

"There has been quite a bit of evidence made at the time on Sept. 6, 1995 which records Harris' assistant Deb Hutton as telling various civil servants and police officers that 'the premier wants them out in a day or two.' The deputy attorney general wrote in his notes, hours before the police moved on the park, that the premier wanted them removed within 24 hours. Some of that information was transmitted by telephone to the incident commander at the OPP command post at Ipperwash," he said.

"Since the premier is denying that he tried to influence or direct the police and the police commanders are denying that they were influenced by the premier's wishes, the questions for the next witnesses will be whether the officers on the ground were influenced by the political pressure at the top."

Immediately after Harris' testimony concluded, several police officers were scheduled to attend (after Windspeaker's press deadline). Included among them is Mark Wright, the deputy incident commander who Klippenstein said "activated the riot squad." The officer who pulled the trigger, Kenneth Deane, will follow him. Deane was convicted of criminal negligence causing death and, after losing appeals up to and including the Supreme Court of Canada, he was forced to resign from the OPP.

"From the George family point of view, the question is whether these reports of strong political pressure from the premier, which were discussed in the OPP command post, influenced the officers who called out the riot squad, who led the riot squad and led the sniper squad," Klippenstein said. "And they have a strong suspicion that kind of information about the premier's views would affect the officers with guns on the ground."

As for the disagreement between the former premier's recollection of events and that of other witnesses, Klippenstein said he would stress one fact when he prepares his final written argument, which will be submitted to Commissioner Sydney Linden after the last witness is heard sometime in May.

"These were notes made that day as people were speaking. So when you've got a jumble of evidence and Harris and other people deny everything, you look at what's the evidence? He's saying this 10 years later. The note that records Deb Hutton saying 'premier wants them out in a day or two' was recorded as she was saying the words on the morning of Sept. 6," he said.
Peter Rosenthal, the lawyer acting for many of the people who occupied the park, put that argument to Harris.

"[W]e appreciate you don't remember saying it, sir, but on the other hand, we have the testimony under oath by Mr. Harnick that he remembers you saying it. And therefore, if you just don't remember it, and he clearly remembers it, the commissioner might well conclude that you did say it," Rosenthal said.

"I can't speak for what the commissioner is going to conclude," Harris replied.