Where's the rule of law when you need it?

Where's the rule of law when you need it?

National Post
Fri 13 Oct 2006
Page: A16
Section: Editorials
Byline: Lorne Gunter

When the subject is two-tiered health care, Canadian politicians are quick to insist they will accept nothing less than a single standard for all Canadians.

But when there is a two-tiered application of the law -- one for natives and another for non-natives -- our leaders mumble, cast their gazes downward and paw the ground.

None of them wants to touch the subject.

These passionate defenders of equality for all suddenly become blobs of inarticulate jelly.

Sunday, Ontarians -- perhaps several thousands -- angry at the eight-month-long occupation by native protesters of the Douglas Creek Estates subdivision near Caledonia, will rally at the disputed site to express their frustration that the illegal occupation continues despite several court injunctions ordering its end.

An ugly confrontation with aboriginal squatters -- perhaps even violence -- is likely. Both the province and municipal government have asked the ralliers to congregate elsewhere out of fear of a riot.

At one point last week, organizers agreed to hold their protest at the Caledonia fairgrounds instead. But since that time, they have reconsidered and now plan to go ahead with their original idea of massing at the site of the land claims standoff.

They insist the development is public land, since the Ontario government bought it from private developers back in June. And as public land, they have a right to go there.

This is a bit of a logical stretch. There are all sorts of public lands that aren't open to the public: military bases, prison yards, utility corridors, even wildlife reserves. If the Ontario government doesn't want the ralliers on its property, it is under no obligation to let them assemble there.

But as has been the case with so much else in the Caledonia dispute, the government of Premier Dalton McGuinty doesn't have the backbone to seek an injunction against a rally it believes will almost certainly lead to bodily injury and property damage.

Wednesday, David Ramsay, the provincial minister responsible for aboriginal affairs, called the rally "a very dangerous pursuit." He insisted that "to have a protest on that property ... we're very concerned about it. It is a threat to public safety and we've asked [organizers] not to do it."

If it's a threat to public safety, why only issue a mealy-mouthed appeal to organizers to reconsider? Why leave the safeguarding of the public entirely up to the Ontario Provincial Police?

"We're not washing our hands of it," Mr. Ramsay insisted. "But the police are there to protect people and property."

The truth is, the McGuinty government has backed itself into a corner with its timidity in Caledonia throughout the spring and summer. It wants to do something to stop Sunday's rally, but it doesn't feel politically as though it can.

It has been so feckless with the native protesters, it doesn't feel it can be firm with the non-native ralliers without exposing its double-standard. So it is placing the entire burden of preventing violence on the OPP and hoping nothing bad happens.

Three times this spring, Ontario Superior Court Justice David Marshall ordered the provincial government to clear out the native protesters. Again in August he called on Ontario's Cabinet to stop negotiating with the blockaders from the Six Nations reserve until they brought down their barricades. He insisted Queen's Park enforce his injunctions against the occupation.

The McGuinty government's response was to take Judge Marshall's rulings to the Ontario Court of Appeal to have them squashed.

Far from getting tough with the protesters, the government has kept the power and water on in the semi-finished houses they are occupying, so that they might continue their illegal occupation in reasonable comfort. The government has also increased the buffer zone around the standoff site so Caledonia residents cannot come anywhere near it. And when a school that abuts the site complained of intimidating behaviour by the squatters, the Ontario government's response was to build the school a high privacy fence rather than to arrest the intimidators.

For months now, the Ontario government has done everything it can to ignore court orders calling for natives to leave the site, so it cannot very well now ask for a court order to keep non-natives away, even if it is certain their presence will provoke violence.

All along, this dispute has been about the rule of law. By not defending that rule when it had the chance, the Ontario government is left to hope this weekend that Caledonia will not descend into mob rule.

I have a quick, straightforward solution.

Send in CF troops with orders to clear out those squatters using any and all methods necessary.

In other words "FIX BAYONETS!"

Clear that motley crew outta there.

Liberal Scum placemarker.

The archetypical Canadian Liberal possesses no backbone, no brain, and no conscience, though he are amply supplied with a motley collection of appetites and fears.

But when there is a two-tiered application of the law -- one for natives and another for non-natives

Not to mention the two-tiered LETTER of the health care law -- one tier for military and police (who can legally pay for care outside the national health system, and from whom doctors can legally receive payment for providing care outside the system), and another for disarmed citizens. The politicians REALLY don't like to talk about THAT double standard.

With the possible exception of the French in Quebec, no conquered people in the history of humankind has ever been treated as well Canada's Indians.

Based upon the subsequent actions/attitudes of both groups, it's easy to argue that perhaps less humane treatment might well have been in everyone's best interests ... especially those of the now whining, self-proclaimed 'victims' who, otherwise, might not be habitually blaming everyone but themselves for their collective failings.

Plus, the Indians are far less inclined to pull stunts like this in Quebec where les Habitants still harbor burning animosities in relation to scalpings, etc. which occurred 400 years ago & quite commonly refer to them as "maudit savages" (damned savages).
If Quebec were to ever leave Canada, any discussion of 'native land claims' with an Independentiste government would be over in something under a nanosecond - absolutely guaranteed!

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