No end in sight to Caledonia’s land dispute
BELLEVILLE INTELLIGENCER
Editorial - Monday, July 10, 2006

Last week, the province agreed to pay the land developers of the housing project at the centre of the land dispute. The province will pay Henco Industries Ltd. $12.3 million.

The sale essentially voids a court injunction sought by Henco to remove protesters from the land.

But Ontario Court Justice David Marshall made it clear Wednesday the removal of the injunction won’t mean a free ride for the people occupying the site.

The occupation and the millions it is costing the province, businesses and the toll it’s taking on nearby residents must stop.

Likewise, the First Nations’ demands that the land dispute issue be addressed must be decided in a definitive manner, once and for all.

Still, some troubling issues remain to be resolved. One glaring fly in the ointment remains how to deal with the protesters who continue to flout orders by the court.

It is becoming increasingly clear, there is open contempt by some elements of the protesters for Marshall and Ontario law in this case.

Marshall said his contempt finding the result of protesters ignoring his injunctions still stands, and he intends to enforce it.

“The contempt has been public, it has been outrageous and it has been continuous,” he told lawyers for the Ontario Provincial Police, Haldimand County, the attorneys general for Canada and Ontario, among others.

“The court is not hurt by it, it’s destroyed by it.”

Lawyers for residents in the area of the occupation who complain their lives have been disrupted by the constant commotion at the nearby barricades and by lights shone into their nearby homes by the occupying protesters say residents are demanding an immediate end to the blockade.

“They’re (residents) being held hostage in the interest of the (land claim) negotiations,” one lawyer told Marshall in court proceedings last week.

The occupation began at the end of February when Six Nations members took over the site where a subdivision was being built. They claim the land was wrongly taken from them by the Crown in the 1840s.

The property will now be held in trust by the province while negotiations continue to settle the dispute.

Locally, Tyendinaga saw an occupation of the Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte band administration offices several years ago. The dispute lasted several days and came about when Mohawks protesting alleged corruption of their own band council stormed the building and refused to leave.

The local chief and band council called in the Ontario Provincial Police who removed the protesters, in that instance. It’s not likely that could occur again.

In light of events that have since unfolded at Ipperwash and other native blockades and protests, it would appear the OPP while supposedly the province’s security arm in such instances has been enfeebled and all but sidelined for fear of raising the ire of protesters and in concerns for public image by the current government.

Despite the fact it appears the provincial force is reluctant to dispatch officers in any numbers or force to carry out Justice Marshall’s orders, the OPP continues to rack up mountainous bills for overtime for officers that simply stand by prepared and at the ready, but for what?

It’s no secret OPP officers, among themselves, now refer to caledonia as “Cashedonia” for the easy and lucrative overtime they can compile.

How long is the province prepared to let the police overtime meter run and the patience of the courts and nearby residents run out?