CBC News
The Ontario Liberal Party on Sunday accused provincial Progressive Conservative Leader John Tory of jeopardizing a "fragile peace" in Caledonia, Ont., where aboriginal protesters have been occupying a housing development site for 18 months.
"Our focus is maintaining peace, his focus is stirring the pot," Deputy Premier George Smitherman said in a statement released as Tory met with residents in the town, not far from the Douglas Creek Estates, the development occupied by protesters upset over a land-claims dispute in February 2006.
The parties are in the middle of the campaign for the Oct. 10 provincial election.
Earlier in September, the Conservative leader said Premier Dalton McGuinty's Liberal government had failed to assert leadership and the rule of law in Caledonia. His comments were made a day after a contractor was severely beaten in a confrontation with several aboriginal youths.
The house where 52-year-old Sam Gualtieri was found unconscious on Sept. 13 was being constructed in Caledonia's Stirling South development. The altercation came as aboriginal protesters were ending a two-week occupation of the subdivision.
The Six Nations Confederacy Council has since assured the developer of the new subdivision that the aboriginals are not making any claims on the Stirling South project.
The Ontario government bought the occupied Douglas Creek Estates property in July 2006 for $12.3 million and said it wanted to continue negotiations with the protesters.
At the time, Tory said the government was setting a risky precedent by purchasing the land while protesters continued to occupy it.
Members of the First Nations say their land continues to be sold off and developed while the claim remains unresolved.
Local residents say aboriginal protesters have trespassed on their property, threatened them and made life difficult because of the barricades on some roads.