By Bill Jackson – The Regional
This past Labour Day it was local residents who proved that the OPP's policy of keeping the peace – in other words doing nothing to stop native protesters from blocking local roads in the first place – doesn't work.
By not acting to diffuse blockades early in the day, police inaction sparked residents into blocking Argyle Street all afternoon which caused slowdowns and surely prevented traffic going in and out of Caledonia on the last summer holiday of the year. And while fires were set on a provincial highway and a hydro tower was dragged across a local road, only one individual was arrested for ripping a flag off a car.
While the sentiment two wrongs don't make a right was expressed by one local councilor, suffice it to say that residents are fed up with being held hostage at the whim of native protesters whose obvious and apparent wrongdoings are never dealt with accordingly.
While police have made arrests following many issues that have caused strife in town during the past two-and-a-half years, very few protesters responsible for criminal acts are ever arrested. Some may indeed by charged eventually, but are often dealt with days, of not months later. Many of them are now seeking reprisal for arrests out-of-town, a new phenomenon that apparently triggered issues here this past Monday.
It's a revolving door of terrorism and two-tiered peace-keeping resulting in borderline entrapment, followed by reactive law enforcement. That the OPP until this point have diffused potential problems by keeping the peace in the past is somewhat of a fallacy because their inaction in the past has only emboldened people to cause more havoc. Now local residents are starting to take matters into their own hands, perpetuating traffic delays.
Even though the OPP seem to think that people expect them to solve land claims, they don't. People just want the law upheld. However, if it was, non-natives would also be arrested for blocking the road on Monday.
For police to say that they've been successful at keeping the peace is a complete farce. If anything they've only strengthened a very volatile environment that can ignite now at any given time, whenever natives choose to spark the flint.
In the process, a community can be held hostage at any given time it seems, by any side, native or non-native.