KETTLE AND STONY POINT FIRST NATION—Five years ago, Justice Sidney Linden wrote that then-OPP commissioner Julian Fantino should apologize to Kettle and Stony Point band councillor Cecil Bernard “Slippery” George for near-fatal injuries he suffered during a clash with police.

Three weeks ago, Fantino, now a Conservative MP and the assistant minister of national defence, said he sincerely wanted to apologize to George face-to-face, but was told by Ontario Provincial Police staff that George was dead.

“I believe he passed away,” Fantino said.

On Thursday, George, 58, begged to differ.

“Do I look like I’m still alive?” George asked during a break from work at the Kettle and Stony Point band office, where he has been a councillor for the past six years.

George said he’s easy to track down, since he has lived in the community of 930 near Sarnia for all of his life. His picture is on a webpage for the band council, along with his name, and the band has a media relations officer.

George’s name is also on his mailbox, and he said he has never lived anywhere but this community on Lake Huron.

“I never moved from here,” he said. “This is my home.”

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Fantino could not be reached for comment. After being informed by the Star that George was alive, a spokesperson said in an email late Thursday afternoon that Fantino now recalls that he offered an apology and it was declined.

George said Thursday he’s still awaiting an apology from Fantino and would welcome one.

The Fantino spokesperson also said that two other former OPP commissioners have already apologized to the community.

George said Linden specifically called upon Fantino to apologize and that Fantino should respect the judge’s recommendation.

The Fantino spokesperson said that he no longer has authority to act of behalf of the OPP.

George said he feels Fantino should still make the apology and that he should make it to the entire community.

“The apology to all of us needs to come from the one that was supposed to do it,” George said.

Linden called for the apology from Fantino in his report at the end of a 22-month inquiry into a bloody clash between OPP officers and First Nations activists in September 1995, in the midst of a protest over burial grounds.

That night, George’s distant cousin, unarmed native activist Antony (Dudley) George, was shot by an OPP sniper.

The officer was later found guilty of criminal negligence causing death, and a judge ruled that Dudley George and other protestors had been unarmed.

The inquiry heard that Cecil Bernard George suffered 28 blunt-force trauma wounds that night during a confrontation with OPP riot squad officers, and that an ambulance attendant was not able to detect a heartbeat before reviving him.

No charges were laid against OPP officers for the beating, after police said they could not determine exactly who kicked, punched and clubbed him.

Cecil Bernard George said Thursday that he was stunned to hear, from someone in his band, that Fantino recently claimed he was dead.

That comment came from Fantino while he was testifying at an Ontario Human Rights Tribunal hearing earlier this month.

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“I said, ‘Holy!,’” George said. “’Why would he say something like that?’ All he had to do was call the band office. Somebody would have gotten ahold of me.”

George said he’s still haunted by the night Dudley George died.

“I still feel hurt about what happened to Dudley,” George said. “I always will. He was our friend and our brother.”

Fantino made his comments about Cecil Bernard George’s alleged death earlier this month at the Ontario Human Rights tribunal hearing into his firing of Larry Hay, former chief of the Tyendinaga Mohawk Police force in Eastern Ontario.

Hay was fired after he told a Loyalist College newspaper reporter that there was “deep-seated” racism within the OPP, RCMP and Sûreté du Québec.

Ironically, six weeks after Hay’s comments were published in 2007, Linden issued his report on the Ipperwash Inquiry, in which he stated: “Cultural insensitivity and racism was not restricted to a few ‘bad apples’ within the OPP but was more widespread. An organizational problem requires an organizational solution.”

At the Human Rights Tribunal hearing earlier this month, Hay’s lawyer, Peter Rosenthal, noted that the Ipperwash inquiry report included a recommendation that Fantino apology to Cecil Bernard George.

“I made every effort to do that,” Fantino said. “It just didn’t happen.”

“Why didn’t you send him a letter of apology, sir?” Rosenthal asked.

“I wanted to do it personally,” Fantino replied.

Fantino said that he was planning to make the apology face-to-face when informed that Cecil Bernard George became ill and died.

George said he is disappointed by Fantino’s comments, but not angry.

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