Joan Walters
The Hamilton Spectator
(Feb 28, 2008)
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Two years of confrontation, dashed dreams and economic disruption have demolished normal life at Caledonia and Six Nations.
Once-tranquil living has given way to fear, despair and ugly daily strife. Negotiations have crawled.
A short list of what the upheaval has entailed includes violence, vandalism, rowdyism, police face-offs, car-tossings, fires, dozens of arrests, blackouts and blockades.
Civil suits have been launched against the Ontario government and the OPP for failure to protect and for economic loss.
The original protest site, a 40-hectare subdivision plot, remains in Six Nations hands, but the reach of the dispute has broadened.
The Haudenosaunnee Development Institute, a Six Nations body, is now demanding fees to enable development along the entire disputed Haldimand Tract.
Some experts believe what's happened at Caledonia was inevitable, likely to happen in some form, somewhere. It's also possible that use of such protest will spread.
This is all a logical outcome of centuries of unaddressed problems, says Dr. Richard Day, a social and political theorist at Queen's University. In the end, Day says, there is no option but long-term negotiation. "That's what we've never done, in a proper way, and there's nothing wrong with starting to do it now."
Six Nations has launched 29 land claims with the federal government in 26 years. One has been settled. Even Sir John A Macdonald grappled with a Six Nations Mohawk land case in 1887.
But Canada's huge backlog of unsettled claims and the lack of an effective process for resolving First Nations land rights have caused situations like Caledonia to fester.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper has noted that it takes an average of 13 years just to get a land claim processed to begin negotiations. There is no easy answer on how long it takes to solve a claim.