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More specifically, some articles question the ability of the OPP to investigate the current Liberal government of Ontario, as they are in at least three current situations, given that the OPPA executive took a public stance against the then-leader of the Progressive Conservative Party in the past provincial election. One reporter even raised the alleged OPP mishandling of the First Nations land claim protest in Caledonia in 2006 as proof of inappropriate ties between the OPP and the Liberal government.

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But what about when we do need them? Things go wrong sometimes. And what do we expect of our police then?

You got one perspective on that question last Friday on this site. Chris Lewis, former commissioner of the Ontario Provincial Police, wrote a defence of his former command (that was the headline, in fact). Mr. Lewis noted, in my view rightly, that the OPP is a credible, trustworthy force, capable of investigating the provincial Liberal government (as it currently is in several parallel cases). Mr. Lewis also made clear recent criminal charges against certain executives from the force’s association — the union by another name — for alleged fraud do not impact on the good work that the frontline officers do every day, and again, he’s right.

But Mr. Lewis also touched on what many Ontarians and Canadians more generally, who are normally inclined to be supportive of the police, have never been able to forgive the OPP for. Mr. Lewis spoke of the OPP’s tough task managing a contentious, sometimes violent land-claim dispute between First Nations protestors and the residents of Caledonia, Ont. — a crisis that left many, myself included, disgusted at the sight of provincial police officers standing by while Mohawk thugs intimidated and sometimes even assaulted non-native citizens. (I won’t recap the entire affair, which Mr. Lewis inherited after succeeding Julian Fantino as commissioner, but would encourage anyone who hasn’t already to pick up a copy of my colleague Christie Blatchford’s book, Helpless.)