The Ontario government is giving the OPP more than $20 million to cope with heavy policing costs from the Caledonia standoff.
The money was approved by the Liberal cabinet just before Christmas after an appeal by OPP Commissioner Julian Fantino.
"The policing needs there are quite significant," Fantino told The Spectator last night. "We have been deploying people from every detachment in the province, general headquarters, you name it. That has been an extraordinary burden for us to sustain."
Fantino will receive $20 million to help cover policing costs and pay for new officers to patrol Caledonia and help officers seconded from across Ontario to return to their home detachments.
It will only last until the end of the province's fiscal year in April, by which time he'll have to make a new request. Some of the new officers coming to Caledonia are graduating from the police academy this Friday.
He'll also receive $1.6 million to put toward expanding the Haldimand OPP detachment in Cayuga, plus pay for new cruisers, computers and other equipment needed to police Caledonia.
As of the first of November, the province said it had spent $15 million in policing the native occupation of a housing site in south Caledonia. Six Nations says the land was never surrendered, but Ottawa says it was surrendered and sold in the 1840s.
The 10-month occupation has severely stressed relations between townsfolk and their Six Nations neighbours and has led to blockades, vandalism and numerous violent clashes.
Fantino, hoping Ottawa will still step forward to help pay for policing costs, couldn't say if the additional policing will temper criticism from some that the OPP are not enforcing all laws in Caledonia. He called such criticism unfair.
"I don't know if we can please everyone in this circumstance. We're not in the business of claiming land or holding land. We're just trying to keep everyone from escalating this situation ... It's unfair to say the OPP haven't been responsive."