BY KAREN BEST
Sunday, January 07, 2007 - 09:00
Haldimand Review
On the last day of 2006, several people heard the sound of gunshots coming from the vicinity of Douglas Creek Estates in Caledonia.
David Hartless, who lives near the site, said there has been a report of a tape of officers reporting on radio that they heard gunshots coming from the area of DCE.
A few hours earlier, Hartless, who is a member of the Caledonia advisory committee, received an e-mail alerting him to a Six Nations tradition of firing guns into the air to welcome the New Year. The message came from Dianne Woods, who is working for the Ontario Secretariat for Aboriginal Affairs. She is also a member of the advisory committee, which was established to keep DCE neighbours informed and to forward their concerns to government and police authorities.
Received at 2:54 p.m. on Dec. 31, Woods’s e-mail also read, “The OPP are aware of this tradition and Insp. McLean has asked that this information be communicated to local residents”.
By the content of the e-mail, Hartless said he felt OPP were accepting that this would happen and by doing so, were condoning it.
“That’s absolutely ridiculous that the police would allow that - shooting in a residential area with an unknown calibre gun,” he said. There were a lot of really mad people in his neighbourhood, he said.
On Jan. 2, OPP Const. Paula Wright confirmed that Haldimand County Acting Insp. Dave McLean was in contact with Woods about the tradition.
The local OPP media spokesperson said the inspector felt it would be helpful in this situation to inform residents that shooting on New Year's Eve is not uncommon.
“I know a few people have heard shots but we haven’t received any formal complaints,” said Wright.
In the late afternoon of Dec. 31, two complainants called OPP and asked to speak to police officers regarding the e-mail, she said.
“There was no confirmation that there was gunfire,” said Lars Eedy on Jan. 2. The spokesperson for the Ontario Secretariat of Aboriginal Affairs said the matter was being discussed at a meeting that day.
Haldimand County Mayor Marie Trainer said she was told by the inspector that there was no proof of gunfire. On Dec. 31, she, too, received phone calls about the e-mail which she forwarded to all six councillors.
“They were a little on standby”, she said.
Coun. Lorne Boyko said he was not concerned about he tradition but felt the information should be sent out in the community. He said gun shots were fired at midnight in the Cleary Avenue area near his Dunnville home on the northern side of town. This is not the first time and it has not been a problem in the past, he said.
Trainer said a Six Nations representative told the inspector that he would not allow anyone to fire a gun on DCE because it would cause a problem. OPP did not report gunfire at midnight and she received no calls about shots ringing out as the calendar rolled on to 2007, she said.
Wright said she was asked about this communication with a Six Nations representative.
“The OPP has open communications on both sides and became aware of this information (cancellation of the midnight tradition on DCE) through a liaison (person),” she said.
Ownership and use of guns by aboriginal persons are referred to in Canadian law and provincial policy.
Everyone must register their guns, said Nathalie Deschenes, who is a media spokesperson at the Royal Canadian Mounted Police national headquarters in Ottawa. In May 2006, responsibility for the Canadian Firearms Centre was transferred to the RCMP.
The federal Firearms Act contains a section stating that nothing in the law appeals or detracts from existing aboriginal or treaty rights of the aboriginal peoples.
Six Nations and the other Iroquoian communities have a large treaty hunting ground and have exceptions to licencing, said Jolanta Kowalski, spokesperson for the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources. “MNR considers the Ontario land covered by the 1701 beaver hunting ground treaty to be those lands south of Lake Huron and Georgian Bay and west of Highway 11 and Yonge Street,” she said. The remainder of the treaty area includes the rest of southwestern Ontario, she said.
A person requires no hunting licence if he is a member of one of those communities and is hunting or fishing in traditional areas for food for himself or family or for social or ceremonial reasons, she said. An aboriginal person can hunt year round for these three purposes, she said.
A conservation officer may ask a person to produce proof of membership in one of the treaty aboriginal communities, said Kowalski. An officer can investigate or charge an aboriginal individual whose activities constitute a conservation issue, an endangerment to public safety or disrespect of private property rights, she said.
If a Six Nations person or a member of other Iroquoian communities hunts outside his treaty area, he would need an Ontario resident hunting licence and would be subject to hunting season restrictions, said Kowalski.
On New Year's Eve, a few Caledonia residents continued to pursue authorities and took safety precautions. Valerie and Rick Vanderwyk sait they were so alarmed by the e-mail that Valerie called Ontario negotiator John Nolan. He returned their call at 90 minutes before midnight.
Valerie said she also spoke to the on-duty staff sergeant who assured them that there would be no gun shots fired at midnight. She took his name and badge number.
Valerie said the staff sergeant told her that officers heard five gun shots coming from the direction of Six Nations at about 6 p.m. on New Year’s Eve.
Wright said this was mentioned in one of the e-mails to OPP.
At about 6:30 p.m., the Vanderwyks heard one shot and at 10:30 p.m., Rick heard four gunshots.
This was “a situation of imminent public danger”, Valerie said. She was upset that people were not notified earlier. As a safety precaution, the Vanderwyks and their children slept in the basement. They live about half a kilometre directly east of DCE.
Valerie said her biggest concern was why police did not take action to stop this.
“Tensions are ramped up so high in Caledonia and this e-mail comes only six hours before it was supposed to happen,” she said. “It makes no sense. Where are we living that we have to be concerned about this kind of e-mail?”
By 7:15 p.m., Hartless said he heard two shots and then another three by 8 p.m. from around the area of DCE. Drawing on his past military experience, he said he believed the guns were a 410 or a 20-gauge shot gun. Hopefully it was bird shot and a small-gauge shot gun, he said. As a precaution, he kept his family on the main level of his home until 1 a.m.
A 270 calibre rifle used for shooting ground hogs and coyotes has an accuracy range of 800 to 1500 metres, he said.
A stray bullet can travel two kilometres and kill someone, he said. If bullets are shot into the air, they will come back down, gaining speed as they fall and hitting the ground at the same velocity they left the barrel, he said.
Stray bullets have killed and injured many adults and children in Canada and the U.S. When a New York man fired 10 shots from a .22-calibre rifle into the air in 1998, one of the bullets lodged in a sunbathing woman’s abdomen one mile away. In Nov. 2003, a Scarborough man died when a bullet blasted through the vinyl siding and a speaker in his bedroom before fatally wounding him as he watched television with his nine-year-old son. In Oct. 2005, a woman was seriously injured when a bullet crashed through her living room window and lodged in her head as she sat in her Port Moody, British Columbia home.
In Oct. 2006, a South Okanagan, British Columbia family was far luckier. A bullet fired by hunters in the nearby hunting area came through the wall and came to a stop in their living room.