Native land dispute unsolved

Nearly three months after the Ipperwash inquiry report was released, the chief of the Kettle and Stony Point First Nation is waiting for government negotiators to be appointed to resolve longstanding land issues.

Chief Tom Bressette said the federal government has yet to name a new negotiator to deal with the return of the former Camp Ipperwash army base.

"We currently are just waiting for processes in Ottawa," Bressette said yesterday.

Likewise, the Ontario government hasn't moved to set up negotiations on the future of the adjacent Ipperwash Provincial Park.

In his report on the violent confrontation in 1995 between police and native protesters that ended with the death of Dudley George, Justice Sidney Linden said the most urgent priority was for the federal government to return the army camp to the First Nation "immediately."

The land was taken from the natives under the War Measures Act in 1942.

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It was surrendered by the natives in 1928 and later purchased by the province.


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