TORONTO - Documents released on Friday suggest Ontario Provincial Police were minutes away from moving in on First Nations blockades on Highway 401 during last year's aboriginal day of action.

The documents include transcripts of wiretapped conversations - recorded without a court order - between OPP Commissioner Julian Fantino and Mohawk protester Shawn Brant. They were released as part of a preliminary hearing into charges against Brant stemming from the events of June 29, 2007.

The transcripts indicate Fantino told Brant he would do "everything I can within your community and everywhere else to destroy your reputation."

Fantino also told Brant "your world's going to come crashing down" during the negotiations to end the tense standoff with police.

Brant was arrested following the incidents, when he and other First Nations protesters blocked Canada's busiest highway as well as the CN Rail corridor between Toronto and Montreal near Deseronto, Ont.

He is facing nine charges related to the events of that day.

Brant's lawyer, Peter Rosenthal, has called on the province to launch a review of Fantino's statements and actions.

In a series of three conversations early in the morning of June 29, Fantino, who went to Napanee during the standoff, asked Brant to "call it quits and then we can all go home," but Brant said he couldn't speak for all the protesters and would have to discuss it with them before dismantling the blockade.

Fantino then told Brant that he would support the protesters' cause only if Brant was able to end the blockade.

"You know, if you pull this off I'm liable to say that your issues are critical and they're important and I'll speak to that, but if you don't then I'm gonna go the other way and I'm gonna say that you're just destroying and you're abusing, you're using the people and you're actually being a mercenary about it, using the suicide of children and all those legitimate issues and you don't want that, because I think I can play the media routine like you do," said Fantino.

"Hey, Mr. Fantino, I put two of my own babies in the ground," responded Brant, whose former wife, soon to deliver twin girls, hurt herself trying to draw water from a well. Brant blamed the lack of even that smallest luxury for related birth complications that claimed the lives of both baby girls.

In a third conversation shortly before 7 a.m., Fantino told Brant "we're running out of time."

"We've been back and forth all night on this and we've got an awful lot of very, very angry people who are absolutely beyond themselves with what's going on and...we just have to close shop here."

Brant told the police commissioner that protesters were in discussions about breaking off the blockade and negotiating with officers who were at the scene.

"We're ready to sit down and have those discussions and we'll do it as swiftly and as responsibly as within our power," Brant said.

Later Brant said protesters would have an answer within a "very short length of time" but Fantino said police were not negotiating anymore.

"We've done it all night, I'm telling you now for the sake of all that's decent and holy and the things you're trying to achieve and to ensure that the reputation and the credibility of First Nations people, which I think is being very severely damaged, I'm now telling you to pull the plug or you will suffer grave consequences," said Fantino.

The heated exchanges between Brant and Fantino seem to contradict the force's own guidelines for dealing with aboriginal groups, which were recommended following the 1995 shooting death of aboriginal protester Dudley George by police at Ipperwash Provincial Park.

Brant said Friday that he hopes Fantino will take a better and more balanced approach in the future.

"The public will be able to see and decide for themselves whether or not this is an acceptable form of policing in the province of Ontario when you are dealing with First Nations people, Brant said.

The documents, including the transcripts of the wiretap conversations, were released Friday morning after a judge in a Napanee, Ont. court lifted a publication ban that covered them. The Ontario Court of Appeal effectively reinstated the ban later in the day. But that decision didn't stand for long, as the court changed its ruling again, releasing the documents.

Media outlets that had started carrying details previously covered by the ban were forced to withdraw their coverage for the period in which the ban was reinstated.

During a news conference Friday afternoon, Brant's lawyer Peter Rosenthal said he was incredulous that Crown lawyers had been successful in their bid to reinstate a publication ban on his client's ongoing preliminary hearing.

Rosenthal said he was amazed by the lengths the Crown was prepared to go in order to keep the details of the preliminary hearing quiet.

The CBC reported Friday evening that the publication ban had been lifted again after a legal challenge by the broadcaster.

Counsel for the CBC, Dan Henry, said the ban was lifted by the same judge who earlier had reinstated it.

Brant told The Canadian Press that the judge overturned her stay after she determined that the information presented by the Crown was unsubstantiated.

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