Occupation of The Park
On Labour Day Monday, September 4, 1995, a group of natives started a protest in Ipperwash Provincial Park to draw attention to the decades-old land claims. After the park closed at 6:00 p.m., protestors cut back a fence and by 7:30 had moved vehicles into the park. About thirty-five protestors occupied the park. The protestors had been threatening occupation since the spring. The original OPP (Ontario Provincial Police) strategy was to co-occupy the Park peacefully with the First Nations. But, when a protester from the group smashed the window of a police cruiser, the OPP pulled back from the Park.
In anticipation of the move on the Park by the Stoney Point First Nations, the OPP had prepared a contingency plan named Project Maple. The plan stressed "a peaceful resolution", and called for a team of two negotiators to be on call around the clock.
Ontario PC M.P.P. Marcel Beaubien was in contact with the police the following day, and Beaubien also contacted the office of the Premier, Mike Harris in an attempt to put pressure on the government to intervene.
On Tuesday, September 5, 1995 several government officials met in Toronto to discuss the Ipperwash protest. The meeting notes conclude, "The province will take steps to remove the occupiers as soon as possible."
Read more about this topic: Ipperwash Crisis
Famous quotes containing the words occupation of, occupation and/or park:
“For myself I found that the occupation of a day-laborer was the most independent of any, especially as it required only thirty or forty days in a year to support one. The laborer’s day ends with the going down of the sun, and he is then free to devote himself to his chosen pursuit, independent of his labor; but his employer, who speculates from month to month, has no respite from one end of the year to the other.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Love is the natural occupation of the man of leisure.”
—Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867)
“and the words never said,
And the ominous, ominous dancing ahead.
We sat in the car park till twenty to one
And now I’m engaged to Miss Joan Hunter Dunn.”
—Sir John Betjeman (1906–1984)