“Premier McGuinty should direct some people to consider what Commissioner Fantino said (in transcripts of the calls) as part of the inquiry … and see whether it’s appropriate for Fantino to stay commissioner,” Rosenthal said yesterday at a news conference in his Toronto office. He won support from NDP MPP Peter Kormos.
The tap on Brant’s cellphone was made without obtaining a court order, a necessary step in all but the most urgent of cases, Rosenthal said. He added that there was plenty of advance notice about the day of action last year during which Brant and other Mohawk activists blockaded Highway 401 and a main rail line near Kingston on June 29, 2007.
Transcripts of the calls were released Friday after a publication ban sought by the Crown was ultimately denied following a series of court battles. The transcripts had surfaced at a preliminary hearing into charges against Brant stemming from the blockade. At the hearing, Fantino said he was unaware of the wiretap at the time he talked to Brant.
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Unknown to Brant at the time, the OPP had a tactical unit ready to forcibly end the blockade, but the 10-hour standoff ended peacefully. At yesterday’s news conference, Rosenthal said Fantino, in those conversations, threatened Brant “with premature death at the hands of (an OPP) sniper.”
“It seems to me, in the context, that’s what would occur to most people,” he said about his interpretation of the conversation in which Fantino spoke of “grave consequences” for Brant.
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