Top cop a disappointment to his boss and Ontarians By CHIP MARTIN

You have to feel a bit of sympathy for Premier Dalton McGuinty on this one.

He visited London this week for a tour of Diamond Aircraft and a speech to the London Chamber of Commerce, still dogged by controversy surrounding the actions of Ontario's top law officer.

Julian Fantino, the former London police chief now commissioner of the Ontario Provincial Police, had embarrassed him by acting like a bully-boy in Fantino's dealings with a native protester.

And Fantino's force hadn't bothered with the legal niceties of obtaining a court authorization for wiretaps during an aboriginal blockade of Highway 401 and the CN Rail line near Deseronto in Eastern Ontario in June, 2007.

All this came as McGuinty attempts to build bridges with Ontario's aboriginal communities and undo the legacy of police over-reaction in the killing of another protester, Dudley George, at Ipperwash Park in 1995.

McGuinty has appointed his former attorney general, Michael Bryant to specifically mend fences in the post-Ipperwash era.

But here was Fantino, exposed by the lifting of a publication ban at the preliminary hearing of Mohawk protester Shawn Brant, intervening in negotiations and threatening Brant. Fantino admitted the same in his sworn testimony at the same hearing. more... http://lfpress.ca/newsstand/News/Columnists/Martin_Chip/2008/07/25/6261121-sun.html