FOREST, Ont. — Former Ontario premier Mike Harris did not use an obscenity to demand aboriginal protesters be removed from a provincial park during a standoff that turned deadly, the politician responsible for law enforcement at the time said Monday.

Cabinet colleagues and civil servants who recall Harris, or others, uttering such words at a high-level meeting just hours before protester Dudley George was shot by police might be confusing decade-old allegations with fact, Bob Runciman told the Ipperwash inquiry.

"I don't recall that comment," former solicitor general Runciman replied when asked if Harris said, "I want the f**king Indians out of the park" during the Sept. 6, 1995, meeting.

Last month, former attorney general Charles Harnick stunned the inquiry by testifying that Harris spoke those words. Harnick became the first person who attended the emergency meeting at the provincial legislature to support second-and third-hand accounts of Harris allegedly making those remarks.

Harnick's testimony was countered only days later by a top civil servant, who told the inquiry she heard then-natural resources minister Chris Hodgson - and not the premier - make a similar obscene statement at that meeting.

"I can't explain that, why people have different versions of what they heard and who they heard it from," Runciman said Monday.

"We've heard that accusation made for so many years that I think that sometimes that replaces memory and becomes entrenched as a fact, rather than reality."

The extent to which Harris directed the police response to the occupation has been a key issue at the judicial inquiry into the death of George - the first aboriginal to be killed in Canada over a land dispute in 100 years.

During his first day of testimony before the commission, Runciman described an "anxious" Harris, sitting on the arm of his chair while receiving intelligence reports of weapons in the park, and pressing his attorney general to quickly resolve the conflict.

"He wasn't shy about expressing his concern, and saying, 'I don't want this to deteriorate into a difficult situation,' . . . referencing Oka," said Runciman, in reference to a 1990 native land claim in Quebec that culminated in a tense standoff with the armed forces.

"He didn't want it to drag on."

Still, Runciman was adamant that everyone at the meeting in the premier's dining room - including three cabinet ministers, their executive assistants and civil servants - were well-aware politicians were not to direct police operations.

"Our position was, simply, not interfering with operational matters of police," said Runciman, who added that the end result of the Sept. 6 meeting was to seek an injunction to remove the occupiers.

A splinter group of aboriginals from the nearby Kettle and Stony Point reserve had taken control of the park two days earlier, claiming they were protecting burial grounds - a claim supported by documents released by Ottawa one week after the fatal shooting.

Runciman, who is now justice critic in the provincial legislature, testified the burial ground issue was raised at the meeting, but was dismissed as having "no merit."

Ontario Provincial Police marched on the park the night of Sept. 6, and in the ensuing melee George, 38, was killed by a police sniper.