Macleans.ca staff | Feb 26, 2007 | 2:06 pm EST
It's been nearly a year since protesters began their standoff in Caledonia, but Indian Affairs Minister Jim Prentice says there is still no end in sight.
The occupation began when aboriginals blocked access to a housing development, claiming it as native land. Negotiations to settle the dispute have moved onto peripheral parts of the claim, but Prentice described the issues involved as "intractable" and "challenging."
"We'd be happy to be further toward the completion," he said in an interview. "But it is a complicated matter. I've always known that it would be a challenging situation that would go on for some time."
Prentice did say the talks had brought some calm to the town, suggesting the situation "could have been far worse" had negotiators not stepped. "If people are patient, we will get this resolved," he said.
The February 28 anniversary date is nonetheless meeting with renewed calls by locals to settle the issue as quickly as possible.
Caledonia residents are calling on Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty and Prime Minister Stephen Harper to quicken the pace of negotiations. They've sent 2.5-metre cards to both men, wishing them an "unhappy first anniversary."
Native protesters spent the winter on the site and say their occupation is not simply about Caledonia, but about the plight of First Nations across the country. "Our people are still marginalized," said Janie Jamieson, a spokeswoman for the protesters. "We're at the point where enough is enough. We've been backed into a corner for too long now."
The dispute centres on a 40-hectare piece of land, part of a much larger area granted to the Six Nations more than 300 years ago. Pieces of the original grant were sold off over the years, including an 1841 agreement between Six Nations and the government - now disputed by the former - to sell off all the land outside of a reserve.
The piece of land on which the dispute currently rages - a subdivision called Douglas Creek Estates - was originally sold in 1848. Henco Industries bought it in 1992, intending to develop it. But Six Nations now disputes the process by which it was sold in the first place - the substance of an ongoing lawsuit, originally filed in 1995, against the provincial and federal governments.
Days into the occupation, a judge ordered the protestors be removed from the land, but the resulting police actions had little effect. Sporadic clashes between protestors and Caledonia residents have raised fears that the situation could degenerate into the sort of violence seen at Ipperwash in 1993, where an OPP officer shot and killed Dudley George over another land dispute.
The province bought the disputed land in June for $12.3 million, hoping to "dampen the temperature of the dispute," in the words of Ontario aboriginal affairs minister David Ramsay.
With files from Canadian Press