York’s Osgoode researchers to speak at Ipperwash Inquiry

Researchers from York University’s Osgoode Hall Law School will participate in a symposium today on relations between police and governments. Organized jointly by Osgoode Hall Law School and the Ipperwash Inquiry, the symposium will be held at the Osgoode Professional Development Centre, 1 Dundas Street West, 26th Floor, Toronto.



York Chancellor Peter deCarteret Cory (left) opened the conference yesterday at a dinner, with a speech entitled “Reflections on Recent Experience with Public Inquiries.” In October 2003, Cory released his report on six controversial murder cases involving alleged collusion by security forces in Northern Ireland and the Irish Republican Army to the governments of Ireland and the United Kingdom, urging judicial inquiries into several of the cases.


Osgoode Professors Dianne Martin (right), Margaret Beare (left) and Gordon Christie will join Philip Stenning, from Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand, as well as Kent Roach and Lorne Sossin, from the University of Toronto in presenting papers. Osgoode Dean Patrick Monahan (above, right) will give the opening remarks and welcome.



Commentators on the papers include Ron Atkey (left), former Chair of the Canadian Security & Intelligence Service Review Committee; Susan Eng (right), former Chair of the Metropolitan Toronto Police Services Board; R.H. Simmonds, former commissioner of the RCMP; Tonita Murray (below, right), director general of the Canadian Police College; Reg Whitaker, author and professor at University of Victoria; Kim Murray of the Aboriginal Legal Services; Alan Borovoy (below, left) of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association; and Wesley Pue of the University of British Columbia.



The pre-conference drafts of the papers, conference agenda and more detailed information about the symposium and the inquiry are available on the Ipperwash Inquiry Web site. 


 


About the Ipperwash Inquiry


The Ipperwash Inquiry was established by the Government of Ontario under the Public Inquiries Act to inquire into and report on events surrounding the death of Dudley George, who was shot in 1995 during a protest by First Nations representatives at Ipperwash Provincial Park and later died. Commissioner Sidney B. Linden separated the Inquiry into two phases that are running concurrently. The symposium is being held under Part 2, which deals with the policy issues and recommendations directed to the avoidance of violence in similar circumstances.