By Marissa Nelson and Joan Walters
The
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The RCMP had more than 80 officers working at a native occupation in
Documents obtained by The Spectator provide the first confirmation the Mounties were present in significant numbers in and around Douglas Creek Estates, the half-built subdivision that has been occupied by Six Nations protesters since February.
On April 20 alone, the day the OPP swooped in and then were pushed back by protesters, at least 70 Mounties were present. Most of the RCMP officers stayed in the area at least three days.
Royal Canadian Mounted Police records show there was a special operations centre in
The documents also show the RCMP arranged for their helicopter to be in the area the week of the raid and that Mounties were stationed at the
The Mounties remained involved in intelligence and surveillance work at least into May. The natives claim the subdivision is rightfully theirs, part of a broader land claim along the
Specialist RCMP units represented by officers called up for duty in the area included criminal intelligence, drug trafficking, border and customs control, organized crime, passport fraud and proceeds of crime units.
Despite an RCMP inspector's statement in April that there were "a few" Mounties in Caledonia, more than 250 pages of documentation obtained under Access to Information legislation show a total of 82 RCMP officers filed overtime or expenses or both for the Caledonia dispute in April and May.
At least 70 officers worked the day of the raid, with one of the earliest staffers being a member of the biker enforcement unit. He reported to work at
The RCMP says its officers were there for manpower support at the request of the Ontario Provincial Police, and nothing should be read into the fact that many officers had special training in such areas as criminal intelligence, drug trafficking and border and customs control.
That is not how the disclosure was viewed by natives, who have claimed for months they have been under intrusive, unwarranted surveillance by all security forces.
"We're criminals, drug-smuggling, gun-toting terrorists whose mission is to destroy the government," said Hazel Hill, spokesperson for the protesters. "That's how they view us. That's the lump sum of the attitude."
Dick Hill, a Six Nations resident, said that shortly after the barricades went up on April 20, four Hells Angels showed up, surprising the natives.
"That's probably what the biker boys were doing there," he said, referring to RCMP officers from the Biker Enforcement Unit.
Hill said he doesn't know why the outlaw bikers showed up. Asked if the RCMP's involvement in
Both Hazel and Dick Hill, a married couple, see the RCMP records as vindication that they haven't been paranoid about surveillance.
"I think they're still here collecting intelligence. I bet you a million dollars they're listening to this phone call," Dick Hill said.
"Welcome to the world of being an Indian."
He said that in April, the couple would hear a helicopter overhead, call police and ask what they were up to, and be told "there's no helicopter."
RCMP Chief Superintendent Bob Paulson, from the RCMP's major and organized crime unit, said he didn't know the helicopter had been deployed, though the documents show it was.
Paulson said the RCMP only launched Project O Caledonia because the OPP asked them to help.
He stressed that the RCMP officers weren't near the centre of the action on the day of the raid.
"They stood around for the large part of the time," he said. "I don't think we ever got deployed into a hot area following the so-called raid. For the most part they sat around, claimed overtime and meals."
Paulson said the officers sent to
Most of the officers sent to
"Their primary duties had nothing to do with their selection," Paulson said.
Any thought that specialized officers were brought in for a fishing expedition is "nonsense," he added.
But security experts say it's appropriate to ask why officers with heavy-duty training in specialties like biker gangs and drugs would be sent to
"The question is absolutely legitimate," says Christine Silverberg, a former
"But care has to be taken to avoid conclusions that would suggest the reason for these specialists was because of an anticipated need for their expertise in the context of native relations."
Silverberg, a former deputy police chief in
"I've worked with aboriginal communities in many contexts," she said, adding that she understands why the natives would see things one way.
But Silverberg said that "professional police officers are unlikely in that context to be going on fishing expeditions because of the potential to escalate problems."
Security consultant Norman Inkster, a former RCMP commissioner, says the presence of specialized officers "doesn't necessarily reflect the fact they think there might have been money launderers there or anything else. It's just that they're available."