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Local Indigenous Activist’s Charges Withdrawn

Monday September 22, 2025

BEAUSOLEIL FIRST NATION, September 22, 2025 - Local Indigenous Rights Activist Johnny Hawke of the Beausoleil First Nation self represented himself in Midland’s Ontario Court of Justice this past Thursday and had his charges withdrawn in an incident that occurred during Midland’s Buttertart Festival held on Saturday June 14, 2025.

Hawke was protesting Simcoe North MPP Jill Dunlops support of Doug Ford’s Bill 5 which Hawke claims will allow industry to infringe on Indigenous Rights and Lands.

“ I set up at Neezhoday Park which is a place other groups use to set up vigils and banners for matters of injustice and since Neezhoday Park is named after a relative of mine an Elder in my community who was murdered by two Midland men and because Dunlops constituency office is the Midland Library next to the park I found this a strategic space to engage in my right of freedom of expression and hang a banner and educate the public on the bill.“ claims Hawke

Ontario Provincial Police removed his banner which angered Hawke and followed them down King Street yelling at them. Hawke was arrested for Causing a Disturbance.

Disclosure from the Crown and reports from an earlier online media article from Midland Today in June on this incident provided that Midland Mayor Bill Gordon approached both Hawke and the OPP and said there was no issues with Hawke’s banner being on the Park sign nor had issue with Hawke’s demonstrating as long as he remained peaceful.

OPP in disclosure state Nicole Major, Midland’s Tourism and Special Events Planner called the OPP about Hawke and his banner draped over the Town of Midland Neezhoday Park sign. Major alerted Midland’s Manager of Culture and Tourism, Karen Mealing. Mealing spoke to Operations Manager, Josh Fuller, and asked that Mr. Fuller send a member of his team to request that the Applicant remove the sign.

Disclosure further shares that an employee of Midland’s Operations department approached Hawke and requested that he remove the sign. Hawke refused Tremblay’s relayed this to Mealing, who in turn informed Mayor Gordon.

Performers from Uganda Drumming at the Buttertart Fest 2025. Their banner is hung on the same property that Hawke was denied for his banner. Hawke was peacefully set up behind the evergreen in this photo.

Mayor Gordon informed Hawke that the Town would not ask the OPP to remove the banner provided Hawke protest remained peaceful. Hawke stated that he would remain peaceful so long as his banner was not taken down. On this understanding, Mayor Gordon left the conversation to attend to his duties as a judge in the butter tart competition. Shortly thereafter, OPP staff contacted Ms. Major indicating that the OPP had made the determination to remove the banner. Midland is not aware of the reasons for the OPP’s decision but denies that it was not involved in the OPP’s decision in this regard.

Hawke claims the constables on the ground did not know how to respond to this matter and asked their Commanding Officer at the Midland Detachment; That Officer contacted the Central Regional Ontario Superior on what they should do.

The OPP on-call Staff Sgt for Central Ontario Region was Marc Gravelle. Marc Gravelle was that final decision maker for OPP who gave orders to constables on the ground to remove Hawke banner was OPP Sgt. Marc Gravelle.

Hawke took it upon himself to research Staff Sgft. Gravelle and found he has a documented history of discrimination in his role as an OPP officer and found that;

An Ontario Provincial Police Discipline Hearing in the Matter of the Ontario Regulation 268/10 made under the Police Services Act and amendments thereto; and in the Matter of the Ontario Provincial Police and Sergeant M.H (Marc) Gravelle, #12091 was charged of Discreditable Conduct involving a matter that involved a Public Complainant by Ms. Kareen Wong.

On May 17, 2021 Sgt Gravelle, represented by his counsel Mr. MacKenzie, pleaded guilty and was found guilty of discreditable conduct, based on clear and convincing evidence outlined in the Notice of Hearing.

In 2013 A former Peterborough County OPP probationary officer Michael Jack filed a human rights complaint against the OPP, alleging that his former fellow officers treated him as a second-class citizen because of his race. Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario File: 2010-07633- filed by Michael Jack names OPP Cst. Marc Gravelle in engaging in discrimination:

Hawke claims these facts demonstrates the behaviour OPP Central Region on-call Staff Sergeant Marc Gravelle while in uniform is capable of discriminative behaviour.

Another Individual with their banner draped over a Town Parking Sign at the Buttertart Festival 2025

AnoThe OPP have an Indigenous Policing Bureau (IPB) which centralizes strategic expertise and provides dedicated support and resources to ensure that the OPP develops and maintains the ability to appropriately respond to issues impacting Indigenous Peoples. The IPB provides support and capacity building to contribute to effective First Nations policing and the safety of Indigenous communities. The Bureau’s core functions are to provide:

• improved capacity for relationships that can identify, mediate and assist in resolving potential conflict situations; effective Indigenous awareness training for OPP employees, police partners and community partners;

The OPP’s IPB Central Region Coordinator is Sergeant Erin McMillian. The OPP also have a Provincial Liaison Team (PLT) that establishes and maintains open and transparent lines of communication with all parties who may be affected, directly or indirectly, by major events or critical incidents. The PLT includes specially trained officers focused on proactive relationship building as a means to assist in resolving issues and securing lawful, peaceful and safe environments, during police responses to issue-based conflict, such as demonstrations.

OPP Staff Sgt. Marc Gravelle made decision for constables to remove Hawke's banner.

The Ipperwash Inquiry investigated the 1995 killing of unarmed Indigenous activist Dudley George by OPP. The Final Report released in 2007 where Justice Sidney B. Linton found that racism against Indigenous peoples was “not restricted to a few ‘bad apples’ within the OPP but was more widespread.” The inquiry "found that the OPP, the provincial government and the federal government all bore responsibility for the events that led to George's death. The report included 100 recommended changes to policing, negotiation processes, and Indigenous land rights. These recommendations have largely been ignored.

Hawke states that the OPP is legally equipped with mechanisms and services to deescalate issues and resolve matters regarding Indigenous Peoples and protests and demonstrations and feel that despite his permission to have his banner on the park sign that the OPP failed in their available procedures and engaged in violating his rights. He also feel that Town of Midlands Employee’s Mealing and Major’s request of having his banner removed was also an act of adverse and indirect discrimination which is protected by the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario.

“I filed a Human Rights complaint on The Corporation of the Town of Midland and OPP for violation of my rights and freedoms of peaceful assembly and freedom of expression where I was discriminated on the grounds of my race and nationality in regards to having my sign removed where other members of the public were permitted to engage in the same actions I was denied.” Claims Hawke.

This is Hawke's Fourth time before an Ontario Court of Justice Self Representing an having charges withdrawn regarding his rights being violated at direct actions he organized such as blocking the road into Awenda Provincial Park in 2019 for 5 weeks to raise awareness on misappropriated lands.

" Symbolic Day like National Day of Truth and Reconciliation and National Indigenous Peoples Day and where the Town of Midland and Tiny Township participate and engage in symbolic gestures of tokenism is not Truth and Reconciliation where discrimination and the status quo still exists." says Hawke

"The Employees of the Town of Midland overreached their capacity in their position

as their superior the Mayor had no issue with me and my banner being there.

My Message to the Town is despite all the talk of Truth and Reconciliation Indigenous Peoples and our issues are only being patronized where our Culture and Arts are the only expressions of our People that is tolerated and as a result Canadians are creating another stereotypical caricature. This is what the Town of Midland is engaged in.

Once we step outside of the lines of what historically is known as the "good little indian"

then People like me bringing real issues to the forefront in the face of Canadians using our voice and exercising our rights then we are criminalized.

I am not the typical dancing and singing token "Indian" used by settler communities to help alleviate "white guilt" of settler society.

#buttertartfestival #townofMidland #midland #truthandreconciliation #midlandbuttertartfestival

SMASH The Non-Profit Indigenous Complex

From Indigenous Action Blog

By Rudy

Indigenous non-profits are the problem.

The Non-profit Industrial Complex (NPIC) is a system of relationships designed by colonial and capitalist forces to manage and neutralize effective radical organizing.

Smash the Non-Profit Indigenous Complex! – Printable format PDF (3.8MB)

EditSign

The NPIC is inherently extractive and colonial.  

The NPIC was established to manage social and environmental groups with the same structure as corporations. Non-Profit Organizations (NPOs) co-opt movement momentum into campaigns they manage to control and capitalize off of. Based on the charity model, NPOs focus their resources on building organizational power and not community power thereby stripping essential resources from front-line radical liberatory organizing, while reproducing or prolonging inequality and social hierarchies.
The NPIC upholds capitalism. 

Wealthy families, individuals, foundations, owning classes, and corporations use the NPIC to shelter their wealth from having to pay taxes. These capitalists grant millions but save many millions more by profiting off of the tax breaks from the NPIC. They have no sincere motivation to end the injustices that they often perpetuate and benefit from.
NPOs are more accountable to funders than their communities. 

Most NPOs are not transparent with their grant funding reports. They operate with a low level of secrecy to ensure that desperate communities they impose their representation on do not see how much they extract and profit from their misery. They often design bloated budgets for personal gain and are not resourceful. They ultimately create incentives to exploit struggles.
NPOs Foster Abusive Power Relationships.

Due to their artificial structure and nature of hiring positions as movement “jobs” or professional titles, security culture and intersectional practices are almost always compromised within these groups. Most often, qualifications are limited to those with academic or activist portfolios and not based on dedication and commitment to the issues and necessary hard work to address oppressive actions and behaviors. Hierarchical Indigenous NPO’s become easily corrupt with cronyism, nepotism, and cis-heteropatriarchy. “Leaders” in the NPIC typically exploit issues to build their social capital and clout. Once these organizations are established, abusive individuals who maintain them often go unchecked due to lacking community-based accountability and job titled positions that absolves them from committing harms. NPO’s are also notorious gatekeepers that have reshaped and distorted what grassroots political movements like abolition and mutual aid have hxstorically stood for. They also undermine and delegitimize radicals whose work they co-opt while channeling and hoarding resources away from those autonomous people, groups or efforts. Overall, they implicitly alienate radical tendencies by their very existence thereby compromising not only potential resources and support, but their very safety. The professionalization of activism and movement work has entrapped many within the rugged lie of independence and commodified relations that are in ongoing tension with actual practiced Mutual Aid.

NPO’s have also overtly collaborated with state agencies and law enforcement to denounce, distance, and criminalize radicals. This has hxstorically regulated our resistance to these oppressive structures.
NPO strategies are explicitly reformist. 

Regardless of the radical revolutionary decolonization jargon they use, NPOs don’t want to end colonialism and capitalism because they wouldn’t have a job without these systems of oppression. NPOs look at movements and break them down into manageable campaigns that meet the grant conditions of large capitalist foundations. They strip away radical tendencies in organizing with management tactics such as “Non-Violent Civil Disobedience” and direct popular energy towards begging colonial politicians for concessions. Their language may be radical but their actions are informed by the respectability and legitimacy they seek to maintain with their capitalist funders and their political targets. Colonizers aren’t going to relinquish their power through bad publicity, voting, or aggressive lobbying. Those tactics serve to reinforce colonial power and de-radicalize overall liberatory efforts.
NPOs Can Perpetuate False Representation.  

Some NPOs appear to be radically driven by Indigenous Peoples yet their founders are not Indigenous and they have no meaningful connection to the communities and struggles they claim to represent. Seeding Sovereignty, as an effort driven by non-Indigenous People, is a primary example of this insidious misrepresentation and profiteering. Other NPOs can be driven by Indigenous Peoples who are movement based yet use these movements as stepping stones for personal gain (financially or through clout chasing) or towards political careers. Due to their resources (and access to resources), they often dominate the narratives of struggles. Acting as the sole voices for Indigenous issues, many NPOs in the Climate Justice Movement have agendas driven by settler social and environmental NPOs such as 350.org or the Sierra Club.

The overall strategy of the NPIC is colonial, upholds unjust power relationships, and capitalism.

Groups like NDN Collective are prime examples of the problems with the NPIC. They have co-opted the term “collective,” which is a radical non-hierarchical practice, but are structured with a president and CEO. They purchase and maintain private property as a “land back” campaign that is not a radically anti-colonial action to build Indigenous autonomy, but a capitalist strategy.Their CEO is paid more than $200,000 a year and their annual operating budget is more than $10 million dollars. They recently received more than $10 million dollars from extreme capitalist and working class exploiter Jeff Bezos. The NDN Collective organizes with the idea of “Decolonizing Wealth,” which is really just a marketing strategy to commodify and cash-in on Indigenous struggles.

During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Indigenous non-profits rushed to secure funding and brand their efforts as “mutual aid” when they were providing financial and resource handouts. This is not mutual aid but acts of relief and charity that serve to keep communities dependent on the very hierarchical and exploitative systems we want to abolish.The NPIC is a barrier to building collective power towards liberation.

Indigenous capitalism doesn’t equal liberation. Smash the NPIC!

Cop Watch: OPP Cst. Marc Gravelle

By Johnny Hawke

Johnny Hawke in Neezhoday Park at Midland Buttertart festival June 2025 which sees 40,000 People in attendance.

June 13, 2025 I attended Midland Buttertart Festival and set up a banner at Neezhoday Park and draped the sign over the park sign. This park is dedicated and named after an Anishinabek Elder Andrew “Neezhoday” Miximong from my community who was murdered by two white men of Midland. At this event there were hundreds of other banners from private citizens placed over street, parking and town signs. My Banner was calling out MPP Jill Dunlops vote in legislature to accept Bill 5 an act that infringes on Indigenous Rights.

Town of Midland, Mayor Bill Gordon confronted me and informed me he had no issue with my banner on the park sign.

I was asked to remove my banner from a subordinate Town Employee. I refused and informed them the Mayor had no issue and permitted me to stay and have my banner up so long as I was peaceful. The constables on the ground did not know how to respond to this matter and asked their Superior at the Midland Detachment. That Officer in charge of Midland OPP Detachment contacted the Central Regional Ontario Superior on what they should do.

The OPP on-call Staff Sgt for Central Ontario Region was Marc Gravelle. Marc Gravelle was that final decision maker for OPP who gave orders to constables on the ground to remove my banner. OPP Sgt. Marc Gravelle has a documented history of discrimination in his role as an OPP officer which is as follows:

“I firmly believe that Cst. Marc Gravelle lied to me in the face. I believe it was him who intentionally and maliciously reported me as a gun-happy person after I had shown him inside of my house and how safely and securely I stored my registered firearms. However, in the scope of the final picture (so to speak) it is immaterial who did that. What is material were the negative connotations attached to one possessing a large gun collection. The OPP were fully aware of my background with the Israeli Navy, my membership in the local gun club (Exhibit 68) and my qualifications in firearms. Hence, it would appear that it was the association of a Russian (me) and my large gun collection that labeled me as a Crazy Russian (Ivan) that in turn ignited a flame– a flame of racial hatred and contempt towards me. The Sergeant’s lack of professional fortitude and objectivity caused this flame to spread all the way to upper the upper management of the OPP that ultimately led to my demise.“

This material demonstrates the behaviour OPP Central Region on-call Staff Sergeant Marc Gravelle is capable while in uniform of such discriminative behaviour. This evidence shows he has a history of complaints made by the public of him engaging in discrimination, using his privilege as an officer to influence the outcome in situations to benefit his own bias and misdirecting investigations such as where he pled guilty to discreditable conduct.

In this matter the OPP constables on the ground did not know how to handle the situation despite being told by the Head of the Corporation of the Town of Midland that I had permission to have my banner on the Towns Park sign.

The fact that an OPP Central Region on-call “Commander” had to give direction to constables on the ground demonstrate this was a unique and sensitive matter that could have been mediated through alternative mechanisms available to the OPP in which they provide and are equipped for. Staff Sergeant Marc opted to act on his own bias and despite mechanisms in place.

The OPP have an Indigenous Policing Bureau (IPB) which centralizes strategic expertise and provides dedicated support and resources to ensure that the OPP develops and maintains the ability to appropriately respond to issues impacting Indigenous Peoples. The IPB provides support and capacity building to contribute to effective First Nations policing and the safety of Indigenous communities. The Bureau’s core functions are to provide:

• improved capacity for relationships that can identify, mediate and assist in resolving potential conflict situations;

effective Indigenous awareness training for OPP employees, police partners and community partners;

The OPP’s IPB Central Region Coordinator is Sergeant Erin McMillian – 416-458-4822. The OPP also have a Provincial Liaison Team (PLT) that establishes and maintains open and transparent lines of communication with all parties who may be affected, directly or indirectly, by major events or critical incidents. The PLT includes specially trained officers focused on proactive relationship building as a means to assist in resolving issues and securing lawful, peaceful and safe environments, during police responses to issue-based conflict, such as demonstrations.

I filed a Human Rights complaint on The Corporation of the Town of Midland and OPP for violation of my rights and freedoms of peaceful assembly and freedom of expression where I was discriminated on the grounds of my race and nationality in regards to having my sign removed where other members of the public were permitted to engage in the same actions I was denied.

#COPWATCH #OPP #OntarioProvincialPolice #PoliceAbuse #Discrimination #Landback #HumanRightsComplaint