In case you missed Rex Murphy last night on The National, he did a great piece questioning the Ontario Liberal Government’s treatment of Dave Brown and Dana Chatwell’s plight in Caledonia.
As Rex so eloquently notes, “States exist – they exist – to protect their citizens.”
Except in Caledonia, Ontario.
* * * *
Update:
Why are we paying this bill? - Joe Warmington:
To think the whole time the lawless lunacy has been going on here, you have been paying the native occupiers’ hydro bill.
And their natural gas and water bills, too. In fact, an invoice dug up by Haldimand-Norfolk MPP Toby Barrett shows since 2006, the province, through the government’s Ontario Realty Corp., has paid $26,178.57 to keep the one house on the occupied Douglas Creek Estates site lit up, heated and in full plumbing.
The invoice shows regular payments from 2006 up until March of this year.
Turns out you are not only paying your own rising home utility bill but also of those who have held this town hostage for three years…
Good grief. And come next summer we get to pay the HST on that too! Thanks Dalton.
And get this!! Caledonia couple no longer suspected of trashing own home – Barbara Brown, CP (In the Standard):
…In examination for discovery, Cain acknowledged the police actively investigated Brown and Chatwell for the vandalism after receiving information from a member of the provincial police force’s Aboriginal Relations Team that pointed to them as possible suspects.
The couple’s lawyer, John Evans, asked the officer, “Did any interviews of any First Nations people take place with respect to the break-in and vandalism?”
Cain replied: “I’m not aware of any First Nations people being interviewed as suspects.”
In January, Fantino acknowledged the police no longer consider Brown and Chatwell as suspects.
“I believe that was the outcome of the investigation,” said Fantino.
The commissioner said the matter remains under investigation and no other suspects have been questioned or apprehended…
More here: Ontario suggests Caledonia homeowner concocted evidence for publicity – Post:
The government’s cross-examination of David Brown, the Caledonia man suing the province of Ontario after his house was caught in a no man’s land when native protesters took control of a large construction site in a fiery land claims dispute, started with a suggestion he made up portions of his dramatic evidence to draw attention to his lawsuit...
So what did they think? That he was another Balloon Boy?
A reign of terror, a trail of OPP inaction – Christie Blatchford (H/T Peter):
…Mr. Evans was asking if the commissioner was aware of an incident where Mr. Brown was cutting his grass when a native man drove by, said “You’re fucking dead!” and drove directly at him, forcing Mr. Brown to jump in the ditch.
Commissioner Fantino said he hadn’t heard about that particular incident, but admitted he did know of instances where suspects were allowed to flee unmolested onto the DCE lands, or as Mr. Evans put it, “the OPP would not go onto DCE to apprehend the individual.
“And what’s the reason for that?” Mr. Evans asked.
“The escalation of conflict and violence and so forth, and safety of the officers as well,” Commissioner Fantino replied.
Mr. Evans also took Commissioner Fantino through a series of questions that established that the head of the OPP knew natives, sometimes wearing camouflage and face masks, were shining spotlights into the Brown home; threatening and harassing the family; regularly trespassing and lighting fires; drumming and yelling and disturbing the peace – and that the cumulative effect of such conduct was likely to intimidate Mr. Brown and his family and constituted “emotional and psychological abuse” by the protesters.
Yet, when Mr. Evans asked the OPP commissioner if the proper police response would be to investigate or lay charges, he regularly replied, “In normal circumstances, yes” or “Normally, yes.”
And bear in mind – This is happening in Canada! Where are all those bleeding hearts who scream about following the rules concerning the treatment of Afghan detainees? We don’t even have police following the rules in Ontario!
Kevin Libin: Caledonia — Coming soon to a land claim near you – Post
Finally, Lorne Gunter sums up the effect this whole incident is having on Ontario residents who are losing faith in police and government (H/T Peter):
…It is not only the preferential treatment of aboriginals that corrodes the rule of law, it is also the abandonment of non-aboriginal citizens by their government and the police — the way the Browns felt forced to defend themselves as a last resort — that damages the web of society.
Dalton? Right Thing?
That would take something akin to leadership Joanne, and we’ve seen so many of those issues where McGuinty could have shown Ontarians that he has the scones to do the right thing, but he did nothing.
Re: Caledonia – he’s managed to dodge his responsibility. After all the residents of Caledonia are Ontarians too.
It is the most astonishing thing, but the Ontario government is bitterly defending a lawsuit in which key police witnesses admit most of the allegations, chiefly that the OPP stood by and did virtually nothing as a Caledonia, Ont., family was terrorized during a native occupation that began almost four years ago.
The province and the OPP are being sued for a total of $7-million by Dave Brown, Dana Chatwell and their teenage son Dax for failing to protect them during the standoff.
The family’s home is cheek-by-jowl to the former Douglas Creek Estates, the housing development seized by native protesters from the nearby Six Nations reserve on Feb. 28, 2006.
The natives continue to occupy the land, which was bought in July that year by the province for $12-million; the beleaguered family continues to live there, and though the worst overt lawlessness occurred in a month-long period in the spring of ’06, the harassment has also intermittently continued.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/a-reign-of-terror-a-trail-of-opp-inaction/article1370805/
I think that Rex Murphy was a dollar short and a day late. Where was he is 2006?
Maggie, actually the court case against the province is ongoing. Check out Christie Blatchford at the Globe. She’s been doing a great job covering this story.
This week in Hamilton, Ont., a court is hearing a civil suit against the Ontario government and police. The testimony has shed light on just how cack-handed and cowardly the handling of the Caledonia siege has been by provincial officials.
The $7-million lawsuit that is at the centre of the Hamilton trial was brought by Dave Brown and his family, whose home is bordered on two sides by the former Douglas Creek Estates, a subdivision near Caledonia, Ont., that Mohawks from the nearby Six Nations reserve decided to occupy in February, 2006, as part of an ongoing land-claims campaign against the federal and provincial governments.
When, in April of that year, the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) finally decided to enforce a trio of federal court orders evicting native squatters from the construction site, the squatters and their supporters repelled officers, who have largely abandoned the site — and neglected the safety of nearby non-aboriginal residents –ever since.
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2009/11/20/lorne-gunter-undermining-the-rule-of-law-in-caledonia.aspx
I don’t any level of government including the local council, aboriginal council is free from blame.
We need every level of government to agree the Rule of Law exists in our country regardless of the short term fallout.
The $ 2 billion is smokes, borders or Caledonia. Everyone is responsible for not managing this File.
The Caledoniawakeupcall blog has links to many news stories on the trial. Also available are the Ipperwash Papers which chronicle a similar situation that has been ignored for even longer. If the Province loses this lawsuit there may be many more in the future.
Thanks Swift. I hope the province loses big time.
Why won’t Dalton do the right thing? He’s an arrogant Liberal with a Majority government. He achieved back to back Majorities even though he lied, breaking all promises he made in the first one, so why would he bother to do the right thing?
We have to hope Ontario residents in certain areas move up from Morontario status next time around. Don’t bet on it though.
Kevin Libin: Caledonia — Coming soon to a land claim near you
Posted: November 20, 2009, 8:30 AM by Kevin Libin
Dalton McGuinty, Kevin Libin, ontario, aboriginal policy, First Nations, OPP, Caledonia
There can be little doubt that almost everyone saw David Brown’s lawsuit coming a mile away. Any Canadian listening to the Caledonia man’s harrowing, shocking testimony before Ontario superior court judge Thomas Bielby this week, would have done the same in his shoes.
Brown says he was threatened, harassed, vandalized, intimidated, and generally driven to the brink by the Mohawk “warriors” illegally occupying a housing development land near his home. And throughout, according to testimony, the Ontario government and the Ontario Provincial Police allowed it all to happen. By his account, they appeared to know full well they were sacrificing this man’s family’s rights for the sake of avoiding an inevitably ugly conflict with the lawbreaking natives. It was a price, evidently, officials were willing to pay. The predictable $7 million lawsuit against the province and the police force, for failing in their duty to protect the family, was surely another price accounted for in their cold calculus. You can be sure the Ontario government’s lawyers anticipated this. On top of the $12 million of tax funds that Dalton McGuinty’s government paid to the aggrieved landowner — buying peace from the Mohawks with the Danegeld of someone else’s property — this was the bill for not having to actually confront the touchy, dangerous matter of native lawlessness.
This is an increasingly common expense. Cigarette smuggling on native reserves in Ontario and Quebec has thrived to the point where the contraband industry will soon eclipse Imperial Tobacco as the country’s largest marketer of tobacco products, stealing buyers from legal sellers. Police, who won’t enter the reserve without band council permission, rarely even try enforcing the law and when they do, the charged don’t show up to court, and if they’re convicted, simply don’t pay their fines, Ron Turgeon, a Cornwall prosecutor, told the Montreal Gazette in March. “In my four years doing these cases, I have never seen anybody incarcerated for failure to pay a fine,” he said. “Now I’m asking for prison for a second offence, but I’m still not getting it.”
Read more: http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2009/11/20/kevin-libin-caledonia-coming-soon-to-a-land-claim-near-you.aspx#ixzz0XRFodP7n
Yes, thanks Peter. I had just posted that one in the update. Lots of great stories on this topic today. It’s truly frightening to watch this horror show going on in Canada.
Man oh man, can Clark on CTV’s PP get any more pathetic. He simply oozes his bias.
CTV has either got to take him to task or be considered a Liberal friendly network. I don’t know of any other show they run that is fair to the Harper Conservative government, certainly not QP with Giggles and Ollie.
Forgot to add, Stephen Harper’s ears must be burning with all the crap being spewed while he’s away.
Haven’t heard ONE positive report about his trip, where he is of bugger all. He’s just a bad dude.
Colvin is the star of their week, need I say more?
It’s amazing that the CPC are polling between 13 and 15 points ahead of the Libs with all the bias against them in the media and the Libs with daily faux scandals.
Just think how much better the polls would be with a fair and balanced MSM and how much more work would be getting done.
I think too maybe the public are starting to tune the MSM talking heads out with all their rhetoric.
I think too maybe the public are starting to tune the MSM talking heads out with all their rhetoric.
Exactly. MSM outlets don’t expect Canadians to think for themselves.
A letter to Tom Clark Power Play
Tom
I thought your conduct in the interview on Thursday’s Power Play, with Peter McKay , who was your guest not some intruder, was distressing to say the least, and not one of CTV News shining moments. You interjected or interrupted him 38 times, which I submit would constitute badgering. I think you will be quite disappointed when you see the replay.
When Defense Minister Mckay said that work being done by Canadian forces was extraordinary, and he is concerned, that this may reflect on the marvelous work being done, you interjected ” I have to cut you off on that point because I have heard and read all the testimony and I have never heard that brought up”.
Only yesterday on your program, you had Jack Harris NDP MP say “what is going on has to be addressed ” and that Canadian soldiers “are arresting 20 times as many people as the Dutch are” that were being sent to prison. Is Harris saying Canadian troops are not acting professionally or that they are drumming up charges ?You are not naive enough to think that he was commending our men and women in uniform – he was making a serious accusation and a slur without any knowledge of the facts or supporting evidence. Our troops are being dragged into into this mess by the same politicians who did grandstanding in the House of Commons with the H1N1, Wafergate, bodybags, door knobs, Olympic uniforms, Carnival sized cheques, etc.etc.
In the segment with the MP’s, I was forced to wonder, if you are now directing Liberal strategy for gimmicks and props, in concert with Warren Kinsella, and serving as their choreographer, because when Wayne Easter shows up with gargantuan scroll of paper, and he said “I could roll it out but I won’t” but later at your direction and instruction “you may want to roll this out” he did, and you had the cameras zoom in on the names, which was totally unnecessary, because the print was large enough to be read from across the room. What was your involvement, and what role did you play, with the door knobs appearing on your program, because that now becomes a legitimate question?
The situation in Douglas Creek is the reason I am pleased that the Calgary Ring Road negotiations with the Native have ceased. They can’t be trusted to not pull this blockade crap after the road was built.
[...] Where two-tiered justice reigns supreme. [...]