Toronto Star
The native standoff at
A bill for handling the eight-month dispute at a housing development was to be delivered to Ottawa last night by David Ramsay, Ontario's minister responsible for aboriginal affairs, but federal Indian Affairs Minister Jim Prentice refused to meet with him as scheduled.
A spokesman for Prentice said he objected to the way McGuinty and Ramsay had been posturing in the media earlier in the day about the meeting, which saw Ramsay fly to
"Mr. Prentice was disturbed by the kind of political grandstanding that went on," Bill Rodgers told the Toronto Star in a telephone interview from
"He wasn't interested in having a meeting in that kind of atmosphere. We expect we'll continue to negotiate when things have cooled off in terms of the politics of this."
Ramsay said he was "disappointed" at being rebuffed because federal progress on land claims in southern
"Over the past 26 years, 29 land claims have been filed by the Six Nations in that area of
Ramsay said before heading to Ottawa yesterday that the bill he was about to present to Prentice was "a work in progress" because the Ontario government has "ongoing costs" at the site in the town south of Hamilton.
On the weekend, McGuinty criticized federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty and other cabinet ministers who used to be Ontario MPPs about the unfairness of federal funding to the province. But Ramsay insisted those remarks would not have soured the meeting.
"Mr. Prentice and I have a great relationship," Ramsay told reporters at Queen's Park.
The bill Ramsay had hoped to present includes:
· $15 million for increased Ontario Provincial Police presence to keep an eye on sometimes violent confrontations between natives and locals.
· $15.8 million to buy the occupied land, a fledgling subdivision called Douglas Creek Estates, from its developer, Henco.
· $1.1 million to Henco for out-of-pocket and other costs, and $5.8 million to buy out other nearby builders and cover out-of-pocket costs.
· $1.4 million in financial assistance to
· $200,000 to
The invoice is about $15 million less than the tally previously estimated by Ontario Progressive Conservative Leader John Tory, who yesterday called McGuinty a "world champion buck passer" and said he would call an inquiry into what went wrong at Caledonia if elected premier in next October's provincial election.
At Queen's Park yesterday, McGuinty said the costly occupation will drag on as long as the federal government remains largely "missing in action."
It marked the second time in two weeks that McGuinty, whose government appears mired in the dispute despite the fact
"Until they step up to the plate and become much more determined in their effort to resolve this, we are going to be kept in this situation..."