By Kaffir Kanuck - Sun May 01, 3:40 pm
Landmark Report
(This is the second of two parts examining the Native occupation of the Douglas Creek Estates in Caledonia, Ontario. It is a result of interviews with activists Mark Vandermaas, Gary McHale and Merlyn Kinrade. It has been framed exploring what it has cost the Ontario taxpayer so far and how the OPP’s actions under their former Commissioner Julian Fantino and those of various stake holders may affect the federal election in two ridings.)
The Douglas Creek Estates were to be a bedroom community for Toronto and Hamilton. Small economic off shoots to strengthen the community were planned such as Chris Syries’ plans to open up a music school for 400 students. A class action suit is still under way representing the few businesses which have remained and are still fighting for justice.
Mark Vandermaas who personally provided an “occupation tour” related the personal and emotional costs the DCE saga has had and still incurs on a population who have seen their property value fall, trapped in a situation where they can’t afford to sell; not that they would find any buyers who would want to move to a community renown for having been abandoned by the OPP.
Mark, a CF veteran, gave his cherished UN Peace Keeping cap badge to one of the locals who live next to the DCE on 6th Line, Caledonia a road the OPP have stopped patrolling and have abandoned. He told this person that they could give it back to him when they feel safe again. Mark is still without his cap badge.
The taxpayer, Six Nations Councilor Helen Miller and activist Gary McHale all have one thing in common: legal costs.
Were the trespassers any other group other than Native, such breach of peace would never have been tolerated by the police. However, in Canada, aboriginals are afforded special consideration within the law and government departments. Undoubtedly a move spurred by historical guilt that saw a law which made it illegal for natives to retain lawyers in pursuit of land claims in 1927, and for which their right to vote federally wasn’t enshrined until 1960.
It was with this sense of collective guilt, along with the failure of the Ipperwash Inquiry where “…out of 100 recommendations made by the Inquiry not a single one specifically addressed the issue of violence against innocent third parties during land claims” that a two tier justice system evolved into something worse for the residents of Caledonia.
The current Attorney General of Ontario, Chris Bentley, is also the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs. The conflicting nature of both those portfolios regarding the nature of how the law has been selectively applied in Caledonia has been so far ignored. Former Commissioner Fantino’s marching orders, received and distributed allowed violence and intimidation to be visited on the residents of Caledonia. The OPP’s policing strategy simply put was appeasement eventually resulting in an absence of violence, which has been deemed an obnoxious justice by Mark and Gary.
Also complicit in perpetuating the horrors of Caledonia was the media. Intimidated through violence, the popular media ignored violence against aboriginal women on reservations while holding focus groups to dictate a media policy hostile to the residents of Caledonia. But the tide is slowly changing. The resolve of Caledonia residents to continue to protest peacefully is starting to pay dividends. Slowly, the media has been forced to see the residents as the true victims at the hand of violent extortionists, especially through Christie Blatchford’s book, speeches and interviews.
There has been a deliberate attempt to silence the truth. The conspiracy of silence which has denied a voice to the real victims of the occupation will eventually come to an end. Mitigation and control of the debate, which has seen pro-resident activists denied access to hall rentals within Caledonia at the behest of the OPP, has been a carried out under the ill conceived notion that any further discussion will “stop the healing.” By refusing to acknowledge the pain of the victims, both native and non-native, victimizes the victims twice.
And this is why conservatives are disappointed with PM Harper for embracing Julian Fantino into the CPC. In a way, the victims now associate Harper’s convenient disregard of the facts of Fantino’s role in the occupation as OPP Commissioner as further attempts to silence the victims and ignore their pain. To date, no acknowledgement that an apology from anyone in government employ for their role in the occupation is forthcoming.
Yet, in spite of the billions lost to Haldimand Track, the taxpayer’s money lost to extortion, and the suffering of the Caledonia residents for which no true cost has yet been appended, to quibble over a mere $10 million dollars in MP Fantino’s riding of Vaughan seems trivial. Given what happened under his watch, Julian Fantino should have been working over time getting some federal funds funneled to Haldimand, in Caledonia, where the real moral outrage resides.