Sept 14, 2007
Brantford Expositor
Native land claim protests could quickly become the defining issue of this provincial election campaign and Brantford could become the focus for the contentious issue.
That would be good news for John Tory and the Progressive Conservatives, bad news for Dalton McGuinty and the Liberals and really bad news for Brantford.
McGuinty would love to finish off the campaign with the dignified approach of a front-runner in a well-rehearsed, stage-managed trot to the finish line.
Tory would love to get people talking about something besides his promise to extend public funding to all faith-based schools.
And Brantford would love to avoid becoming the lead story on the national news for a situation about which most in the city can do nothing.
Local developer Mike Quattrociocchi has vowed to resume work on a housing project that was halted earlier this month by Six Nations protesters. Quattrociocchi says the Six Nations Confederacy has asked him for $48,000 to complete the project, but that he will refuse to pay.
His timing in trying to complete the project could have a provincewide impact if it results in an occupation like the 18-month-old one in Caledonia.
McGuinty got a little taste of how the issue could sidetrack his campaign to get re-elected when Quattrociocchi appeared at a Liberal event in Hamilton Wednesday. Liberal staff criticized CHCH-TV for placing a microphone on the developer before he confronted the premier, accusing the TV station of staging the news. What they're really complaining about is that their own staged event was interrupted.
For Tory, an occupation or protest would almost certainly deliver a fresh issue to his stalled campaign to unseat McGuinty - an opinion poll this week pegged Conservative support at almost 10 per cent behind the Liberals.
Tory can spout rhetoric about the need to speed up land claim resolution while battering the Liberals with his One Law for All philosophy and promising that, if he becomes premier, native protesters will be arrested the same way anyone else would be.
Meanwhile, the real possibility of a native occupation in Brantford looms, replete with the violent confrontation we saw shake the Caledonia community.
Here, the possibility of such an occupation could last far longer than the election campaign and be much more than just an election issue.