Common Sense Revulsion

[CHIMO]

Tories ‘rednecks’ on Ipperwash: OPP inspector

FOREST, Ont. - Former Premier Mike Harris was a “redneck” and “gun-loving” and believed he could to direct the Ontario Provincial Police to take action against native protestors, according to a senior police officer who met with him hours before the massive police operation which ended in the shooting death of native activist Anthony (Dudley) George.

“He believes he has the authority to direct the OPP,” Insp. Ron Fox says in a telephone conversation to a fellow officer, moments after Fox met with Harris and senior government officials, including then solicitor-general Bob Runciman, attorney-general Charles Harnick and minister of natural resources Chris Hodgson at Queen’s Park.

“They just want us to go and kick ass,” Insp. John Carson replies to him in the telephone conversation, heard publicly for the first time today in the public inquiry into George’s death.

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_PrintFriendly&c=Article&cid=1116410878576&call_pageid=968332188492

Read the whole article. It is not locked, it is the print version. Plenty there.

Belinda's political advisor. Has she dropped him?

[iverglas]

1. "Belinda's political advisor"

Yup. You don't even have to go to Magna's Austrian tentacle to find something awfully neo-Nazi smelling.

After that meeting, tape recordings captured Fox referring to senior government officials as appearing to be on “some sort of ... testosterone high” while telling the OPP they wanted native protestors immediately removed from Ipperwash Provincial Park.

... Fox is clearly upset in the tape after his meeting with Harris and the other senior politicians, saying, “We’re dealing with a real redneck government. They are (expletive) barrel suckers. They just are in love with guns.”

“Okay,” Carson replies.

“There’s no question they don’t give a sh-- less about Indians,” Fox continues.

Ya gotta love the image of the cops calling the politicians those things.

Harris joined the Magna board in 2003, so I'd assume he's still there. Maybe somebody else can tell the difference between politics and business at that level, but I sure can't.

David Peterson and all those other Liberal and Conservative luminaries being on the board, too -- that being why I'd picked Peterson as the prime negotiator/wooer as soon as I heard the news of the defection, as turned out to have been the case. Peterson being married to the dimmest daughter of the London construction business millionaire who was for years the president of the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party and all (one of the smarter sisters is now the Liberal MPP for their North London / UEL homeland), too ... it just gets so hard to tell 'em all apart way up there ...

http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/LondonFreePress/News/2004/02/04/335133.html

Matthews comes by her interest in party politics honestly. Her sister, Shelley, is married to ex-Londoner David Peterson, Ontario's Liberal premier from 1985 to 1990.

And her father, Don Matthews, was president of the federal Progressive Conservative party from 1971 to 1974.

In the 1980s, Don Matthews was deputy chairperson of the PC Canada Fund, which raised money for the federal Tories.

"Honestly"? Not the word I'd choose if I were describing the graft that wafted around Daddy during his days at the helm.

But no! Belinda's a socially conscious, smart, "liberal" feminist. She just hangs out with these folks because, um, they throw good tea parties.

[achtung_circus]

2. I liked the term

referring to the Harris cabinet as "fucking barrel suckers". I took that from the context to mean gun nuts.

[paineinthearse]

3. Tapes show Harris urged OPP to act against native protestors

Tapes show Harris urged OPP to act against native protestors
FOREST, Ont. —Former premier Mike Harris led a gun-loving "red-neck government" and believed he could direct the Ontario Provincial Police to take action against native protestors, according to a senior police officer who met with him hours before the massive police operation that ended in the shooting death of native activist Anthony (Dudley) George.

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http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1116454213387&call_page=TS_News&call_pageid=968332188492&call_pagepath=News/News&pubid=968163964505&StarSource=email&DPL=IvsNDS%2f7ChAX&tacodalogin=yes

Tapes show Harris urged OPP to act
Officer talks of meeting with Harris
Treat natives 'like bikers,' inquiry hears


PETER EDWARDS
STAFF REPORTER

FOREST, Ont. —Former premier Mike Harris led a gun-loving "red-neck government" and believed he could direct the Ontario Provincial Police to take action against native protestors, according to a senior police officer who met with him hours before the massive police operation that ended in the shooting death of native activist Anthony (Dudley) George. "He believes he has the authority to direct the OPP," Insp. Ron Fox says in a telephone conversation to a fellow officer, moments after Fox met with Harris and senior government officials, including then solicitor-general Bob Runciman, attorney-general Charles Harnick and minister of natural resources Chris Hodgson at Queen's Park.

"They just want us to go and kick ass," Insp. John Carson replies to him in the telephone conversation, heard publicly for the first time yesterday at the inquiry into George's 1995 death in Ipperwash Provincial Park.

The tapes mark the first time the public has heard a senior police officer discuss meeting with Harris face-to-face that day 10 years ago. In the telephone conversation, Fox says Harris made it clear that he didn't consider a native occupation of the park in a burial ground protest to really be "an issue of native rights." Instead, Fox says that Harris bluntly told the government meeting, "We've tried to pacify and pander to these people for too long. It's now time for swift affirmative action ... They should have just gone in." Fox continued: "He (Harris) views it as a simple trespass to property. That's in his thinking. He's not getting the right advice. Or if he is getting the right advice he sure is not listening to it in any way, shape or form."

more.....