The Caledonia quagmire

Dispute with natives is disturbingly reminiscent of another age-old battle over land. Where's the rule of law?

By Christina Blizzard
Toronto Sun
Aug 1, 2006

Turn the corner past well-kept homes at Burnside St. and Thistlemore Dr. and you feel as if you've fallen into some Alice in Wonderland rabbit hole.

Behind you is a scene of suburban bliss. Hollyhocks nod in the breeze. Yards are ablaze in impatiens. Only the odd lawn sign asking if anyone's seen Dalton (McGuinty) or Gwen (Boniface, the OPP commissioner who resigned on Friday) hints that all is not well behind the lace curtains.

Then you turn the corner -- and you drop into a parallel universe. In front of you is a wasteland. The roads into this community southwest of Hamilton are no longer barricaded, but the land purchased in trust by the government for $12.3 million is still occupied by native protesters.

Henco Industries had planned to build 600 homes on Douglas Creek Estates, a 40-hectare property. About 10 homes were under construction when native protesters moved in. The homes sit half-finished -- with red and yellow native warrior flags fluttering defiantly on top of them.

Ontario PC leader John Tory came here yesterday to talk to the residents -- an act native spokesman Darrell Doxtdator called "inappropriate grandstanding."

"It's crossing the line into more of a deliberate attempt to grandstand and embarrass the existing government, and that is not serving the residents of Caledonia," said Doxtdator, an adviser to Six Nations Chief David General.

Tory was here to point out that while last week Community Safety Minister Monte Kwinter was saying the siege in Caledonia was all but over, residents say that's not the case.

Homeowners I talked to are so fearful for their safety, they wouldn't give their names. And they are worried that their property values have plummeted. If the OPP won't enforce a court order, what value is there to the province's land registry system? Do you really own your own home?

"The Criminal Code of Canada applies to everyone in Canada -- in fact, I think it even applies to people who are visiting Canada -- and we can't have it any other way," Tory said. At one point, he and Doxtdator were talking about Tory visiting the people occupying the land. Ironically, Doxtdator said Tory should give them some warning.

"When you are going on someone's land, it's always best to show some courtesy," he told Tory. Oh? Like not setting up barricades and burning tires, or hauling people out of their cars, as happened in Caledonia a few weeks ago?

You see similar rabbit-hole logic in the Middle East. Lebanon complains about Israeli missiles killing children. Yet many of these same people support Hezbollah -- which sends teens with bombs strapped to their bodies to blow up other teens in pizzerias in Israel.

I'm not condoning killing innocent children. But when you live by the sword, sometimes you die by it.

Look, I'm, not suggesting anyone is blowing up anyone up in Caledonia. But the provocative and violent way in which the native protesters made their demands in Caledonia could, under other circumstances, have led to a far different outcome.

What the Mideast and Caledonia do have in common is that the fight is all about that most innate human instinct -- the territorial imperative. People will tell you wars are fought over religion. That's not true. They are fought over that most human craving -- land. The desire to own it, hold it -- to take it away from others.

The McGuinty government may think it's neatly sidestepped the issue by buying the disputed Caledonia land from the developers. In fact, it has just created a might-is-right precedent. The bully in the sandbox won.

That's not supposed to be how it works here. We have the rule of law. We have a land registry that gives people the right to register their land. We have courts to enforce those rules.

The judge in this case is asking why his order hasn't been enforced by the cops. Good point. Why hasn't it?

We don't live by the sword. Nor do we live by the whims of people who don bandannas and push their neighbours around. Because once you let that happen, you don't have Ontario any more. You have anarchy.