TORONTO, June 25, 2004 -- Researchers from York University’s Osgoode Hall Law School will participate in a one-day symposium on relations between police and governments organized jointly by Osgoode and the Ipperwash Inquiry.

The symposium will be held on Tuesday, June 29th at the Osgoode Professional Development Centre, 1 Dundas Street West, 26th Floor, Toronto, from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.

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

The Honourable Peter deCarteret Cory, chancellor of York University, will open the conference at a dinner on Monday with a speech titled: "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.

Commentators on the papers include Ron Atkey, a former chairman of the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service Review Committee; Susan Eng former chair of the Metropolitan Toronto Police Services Board; R.H. Simmonds, former Commissioner of the RCMP; Tonita Murray. Director General of the Canadian Police College; Reg Whitaker, author and professor, University of Victoria; Kim Murray, Aboriginal Legal Services; Alan Borovoy of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and Wesley Pue of the University of British Columbia.

The pre-conference drafts of their papers have been posted on the Ipperwash Inquiry's web site: www.ipperwashinquiry.ca. The conference agenda and more detailed information about the symposium and the Inquiry are also available on the website.

The Ipperwash Inquiry was established by the Government of Ontario under 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, the Honourable 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.

Registration for the symposium is now closed due to limited space except for members of the media.

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