TORONTO - Ontario taxpayers will shell out $20 million to compensate businesses and residents caught up in the Caledonia land claim crisis.
Attorney General Chris Bentley said the government was pleased to reach a settlement in a class action lawsuit brought in 2006 by residents and business owners who suffered losses as a result of the Douglas Creek Estates claim.
“I really hope that it will provide some closure for the residents, the business owners, help them move forward with their lives,” Bentley said Friday.
According to a website set up for the class action lawsuit, the action was launched against the OPP and province to seek compensation for the disruption caused by the Six Nations claim, including closing the major transportation routes into town.
Tory MPP Toby Barrett, who represents the riding of Haldiman-Norfolk, said the actual loss to Caledonia and neighouring towns is far greater than the settlement would suggest.
Families fell apart from living under constant stress, major retailers abandoned plans to open up in the region and a $116-million hydro corridor remains idle with a native flag flying from one of the unused towers, he said.
The cost to taxpayers has also been significant with ongoing policing and security, the purchase price of the disputed land and other compensation agreements.
“In many ways $20 million is just a drop in the bucket with respect to the cost of this travesty,” Barrett said, adding it could have been avoided if all laws had been enforced. “The subdivision is still occupied illegally, so $20 million isn’t going to make that go away.”
The settlement may be a “sideways apology” from the Dalton McGuinty government or it could be a desperate attempt to hush up the community just prior to a fall election, he said.
Bentley said his ministry trying to bring a resolution to a very challenging situation, a land claim that was really two centuries in the making, using the principles espoused by the Ipperwash Inquiry into the shooting death of an aboriginal protester.
”When it became clear a resolution was possible, instead of years of litigation, I mean obviously I was interested in pursuing that,” Bentley said.
The minister urged the federal government, which is constitutionally obliged to negotiate the claim, to get on with settling it.
The lawyer representing the plaintiffs in the class action lawsuit could not be reached for comment.