Ontario Hansard - Caledonia standoff

Mr. Ted Chudleigh (Halton): My question is to the minister of native affairs. This week, Dalton McGuinty referred to the Caledonia standoff as being one "without incident," this after 13 police officers have been injured; tire fires have been seen for miles; there was an electricity blackout involving more than 9,000 people and businesses caused by sabotage of a transformer station; there were brawls between protesters and other Caledonians; a security guard's car was burnt to the ground; paved Ontario roads were being dug up by heavy machinery; two OPP officers were reportedly held by protesters for entering a no-go zone, and on and on. Clearly, Minister, Mr. McGuinty is out of touch with what is going on in Caledonia. If not, why would he have said such a thing?

Hon. David Ramsay (Minister of Natural Resources, minister responsible for aboriginal affairs): I was in the House when the Premier give that response, and I know exactly what the Premier was responding to. Basically, your party, the official opposition, was asking questions that were suggesting there should be stronger action being brought to bear on this situation rather than the approach that we have taken of negotiation. What the Premier was saying was, unlike some of the incidents in the past where there have been deaths -- there was a death at Oka and there was a death, as we know, at Ipperwash. What the Premier was stating was that we did not have an incident of loss of life like that here, and that it's because of the cool manner we've taken and proceeded with in trying to resolve this issue.

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Mr. Chudleigh: I beg to differ with you. Caledonia has undergone more than 100 days of hardship, with no solution in sight. Businesses have suffered. People have been hurt. The community is torn in half. Youth sports are now being cancelled or boycotted. For Mr. McGuinty to describe this standoff as one "without incident" is at best insensitive and insulting to the injured OPP officers and the entire community of the Caledonia area. The Premier has trivialized this standoff from the beginning, and his lack of leadership is inexcusable.

Minister, will you, on behalf of your government, apologize for the Premier's remarks, his insensitive remarks, of this week?

Hon. Mr. Ramsay: It appears we're going to be here all afternoon, I suppose, debating semantics, and you can do that if you wish.

What I want to say to you is that Premier McGuinty has put all the resources of the Ontario government behind resolving this issue, and that's from day one. We've been doing that and working with the people of Caledonia, and you know the help that we've brought to the community: the $500,000 that the Minister of Economic Development and Trade has brought to the community; the work we've been doing with the Six Nations community. You know it's a complex and difficult issue. Today, the long-term table, with Jane Stewart and Barbara McDougall, are talking as we speak today, and we're working towards a resolution.

Mr. Chudleigh: Dalton McGuinty has been missing in action when it comes to the standoff in Caledonia. All we have heard is desperate spin about instructing police officers, how motions passed in this Legislature are nothing but mischievous and how this situation is without incident or physical harm.

Minister, your Premier's irresponsible and inexcusable spin job exemplifies his inability to show real leadership on this particular issue. You and your Premier need to tune in to what is really going on down there, and you can start by retracting and apologizing for Dalton McGuinty's insensitive remarks about the standoff being without incident. It is not even close to being accurate, and the record should be corrected here in the House today. Will you do that, Minister? Will you apologize and confirm that the Premier's comments were inaccurate and wrong?

Hon. Mr. Ramsay: On many occasions in this House in response to questions, all of us on the government side have stated how saddened we were by the incredible disruptions to people's lives that have happened down in the Caledonia area. It has affected the community, it has affected businesses, and we have tried to support and respond to those concerns.

I would say to you, in talking to Jane Stewart this morning before she went into negotiations, that we are confident that we have a good engagement with the Six Nations leadership. We're going to have some good, productive discussions today, and our goal and our aim here are to solve this situation for the betterment of the community at large in Caledonia and the people of Six Nations.