Julian Fantino, OPP Commissioner, has to appear in court today to defend himself against charges he encouraged officers to arrest a protester, Gary McHale, without evidence.  Emails disclosed under the Freedom of Information Act, show that Mr. Fantino was preoccupied with McHale saying in an email, "At some point McHale has to go," a half hour after a protest began on December 1, 2007. 

At one point during the protest rumours reached the police that McHale may have pushed a female native and was subsequently attacked, beaten, and taken to hospital.  In response to reports to the rumours Fantino wrote, "I want every avenue explored by which we now can bring McHale into court seeking a court order to prevent him from continuing his agenda of inciting people to violence in Caledonia. "We should be able to prove to court that McHale's forays into Caledonia have been planned and executed for purposes of breaching the peace which today also resulted in violence. We can't allow this vicious cycle to continue to the point where time and again we have to expend an inordinate number of police resources to keep people from killing themselves."

Read the whole article here.

UPDATE: The Crown has withdrawn the charges against OPP Commissioner Julian Fantino, because the charges were brought against the Commissioner by a private individual and for it to proceed to court the Crown would have to approve of the charges.  In this case the Crown has apparently not agreed with the charges, although there is an appeal.