Dana Chatwell looks wistful standing on the side of the highway on a cold, foggy morning and watching a bulldozer knock down her childhood home.
The bungalow on Argyle Street South where she grew up with her parents and five siblings represents a lifetime of memories -- not all of them good.
The Ontario government wasted no time in demolishing the house it obtained in an out-of-court settlement late last month with Chatwell, 46, her husband David Brown, 42, and their son Dax, 18. The family had been suing the province and Ontario Provincial Police for $7 million for effectively abandoning them to the lawlessness that surrounded the native occupation of the former Douglas Creek Estates property next door to their home.
Financial terms of the settlement are confidential and it was reached without any admission of liability by the government and the OPP.
"Well, like I said, it's sad, but I'm also happy that it's coming down," Chatwell said. "I'm having mixed emotions. My dad wouldn't come today. He said he's staying home to remember it the way it was."
Chatwell said her family got the last of their furniture and personal effects out of the house yesterday, and the government brought in the heavy equipment the same day.
Chatwell was not alone as she watched the house come down.
Word of the demolition got around town pretty fast. Cars and trucks were soon parked along both sides of the highway, with dozens of spectators stopping for a look.
The couple's lawyers and provincial representatives negotiated during the Christmas recess and reached the settlement just days before the trial was to resume.
Whether a slip-of-the-tongue or an unintended political announcement, a lawyer for the government, David Feliciant, at one point in the trial referred to the occupied site next to the couple's property as the "DCE Reserve."
After getting a settlement, Chatwell and Brown went out and bought a nice brick house in town for $260,000. She said it has a beautiful back yard on a creek. She looks forward to putting out patio furniture, relaxing, barbecuing and enjoying the peace of mind she has not known for almost four years.
Superior Court Justice Thomas Bielby heard four weeks of dramatic and often emotional testimony from Chatwell, a self-employed hairsylist, and Brown, an unemployed heavy equipment operator. They testified about the overwhelming stress on their marriage caused by almost daily confrontations with native protesters. They lived in fear, unable to sell their home and unable to live in it with anything approaching a normal life.
Their former property was bordered on two sides by the residential development project known as the Douglas Creek Estates that was seized Feb. 28, 2006, by a handful of Six Nations protesters pressing historic land claims.
They told court they lived in terror trapped for a month behind barricades natives erected after a failed OPP raid in April 2006. They were harassed by day with threats to kill them and burn down their house, and at night by bright spotlights, drumming and chanting.