Caledonia Shrouded in Silence

When I first heard that Sam Gualtieri was beaten to within an inch of his life in a house he owns, by several thugs, associated with an illegal land claim protest, I thought there would be a long overdue public outcry demanding to know how the situation was allowed to escalate to this point. I was sure that Caledonia was going to be an election issue after that, and if the media was doing it’s job, it would be.

The media seems to disagree. There is very little beyond the local coverage in Hamilton and Caledonia, and if the latest polls can be trusted, the Liberals have not been affected by their lack of performance.

If the discomfort I feel just writing my personal thoughts on this matter is any indication of why it would be difficult for members of the actual media to render a balanced account of what is happening in Caledonia, then fear of political incorrectness is enforcing the silence on this matter. Racists and non-racists have at least one thing in common; they don’t like being called racist. I know that by writing this article, I expose myself to the possibility of being called racist.

Yesterday, at a press conference to announce the compensation package for natives who were victimized by the Catholic Church at residential schools, Phil Fontaine shot back at critics of the plan who say that the two billion dollars could be spent in a better way, by saying: “I sense a tone of racism to all of those concerns and worries.”

Accusing one’s critics of racism is a good way to shut people up, but unfortunately, shutting people up for the simple reason that they do not agree with you, does not serve the greater good.

An objective account of what is happening in Caledonia, would inevitably seem like criticism of the hypocrisy of Six Nations and the tactics they have employed in this so-called land claim protest. After having commented upon the illegal activity of a group of people who are very accustomed to getting political mileage out of their history of being victimized by who they commonly refer to as “The White Man”, one would have to expect splash back in the form of being accused of racism. The ability to throw out that accusation, buys a lot of silence, and First Nation leaders are not shy about using it.

During this election, I thought that the Conservatives would be able to nail Caledonia right into McGuinty’s forehead. However, John Tory is not hammering on this issue for fear of hitting himself on the Ipperwash thumb. Without John Tory forcing this issue, the media is not forced to cover it, and in fact, is content not to.

This conspicuous silence must create a terrible feeling of isolation for the citizens of Caledonia. The OPP upholds the law very reluctantly, if at all. The government of Ontario has washed its hands of the mess, while the government of Canada properly sees the land claim as having no merit in law, and doesn’t have jurisdiction to enforce the law where the OPP should be. Now that the media has refused to use the occasion of the savage attack on Sam Gualtieri to bring this story forcefully to Canadians who would certainly be keenly interested in this. Caledonians can properly conclude that they will face the lawless intimidation tactics of the Six Nations natives, virtually alone.

There is likely a lot of carefully guarded support among the Canadian populace, but perhaps no one understands what the people of Caledonia are going through as do the people of Ipperwash. Due to the fact that Ontario natives would be stupid not to recognize the fact that they are able to practice extortion with virtual impunity, I suppose that people in many other Ontario communities will learn first hand what it must be like to live in Caledonia right now. At least Caledonians will feel less isolated. They’ll have friends in places like Sharbot Lake.

For some interesting reading on this subject, check out:

Indispensible resource on the Caledonia stand-off:

http://www.caledoniawakeupcall.com/

A lot of information pertaining to the land claim, and experiences of Caledonians

http://www.citizensofcaledonia.ca/

Blog on Caledonia and Ipperwash

http://voiceofcanada.wordpress.com/

Excellent investigative report on the Six Nations tobacco and gambling industries. Hmmm … I wonder if
there is any connection with the land claim stand-off.

http://www.hamiltonspectator.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=hamilton/Render&c=Page&cid=1159869701435

Yes … it seems that there is a connection.

http://www.canadaka.net/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=15432

Same connection … from a source sympathetic to Six Nations.

http://sisis.nativeweb.org/actionalert/updates/060623expositor-b.html

Caledonia May Bite McGuinty in the Hind-quarters …

… and well it should.

For the Liberals, this is the exact wrong time for a flare-up of the situation in Caledonia. Media references to this debacle have been rare lately, but due to a very unfortunate incident on Thursday, Caledonia may become an important voting issue in this election.

Sam Gualtieri, was attacked by native youths in a house he was building for his daughter, several kilometers away from the protest site in Caledonia.

He is now in serious condition, drifting in and out of consciousness. His brother Joe says he believes Sam was one strike away from being murdered. He also says he expects Dalton McGuinty to bear some responsibility for the attack.

The Globe and Mail reports that Joe Gualtieri said Ontario Provincial Police officers on the site “stood there, and they did not intervene” until after the beating, when the attackers had fled.

If this story has legs, and the media decides it likes Joe Gualtieri, then I predict that Caledonia will be McGuinty’s inverted Ipperwash.

I think that there should be an investigation to determine to what extent that Dalton McGuinty has influenced the OPP to prevent them from enforcing the law in Caledonia.

Six Nations Chief, Allen MacNaughton has said “We cannot condone the violent actions of a few.” Not condoning something is a few steps short of condemning it. Also, it remains to be seen how co-operative Six Nations authorities will be in terms of identifying the assailants.

McGuinty was very quick to lash out at the federal government, saying that they need to do what is necessary to resolve the dispute.

The last time I checked, the OPP is responsible for policing Caledonia. If someone is trespassing on someone else’s land, it is up to the OPP to arrest that person. The owner of the land is the person whose name is on the deed. Any outstanding issues between the Canadian government and the aboriginal community are not relevant. The courts are the proper place to sort that out. By refusing to enforce the law in this situation, the OPP has exceeded its authority by interjecting itself into the land claims resolution process. It is that simple.

Due to the fact people of a different race would never get away with these sorts of actions, Caledonia is an example of the fact that there is no equality under the law in McGuinty’s Ontario.

Bias on Front Page of the Nugget

Today, on the front page of the Nugget, an article titled “Parties disagree on health premium” started like this: “The hot-button issue of taxes and the Ontario health premium, an enduring symbol of the Liberal government’s promise-breaking record, took centre stage on the campaign trail Wednesday.”

Perhaps such an article should be on the opinion page, or at the very least carry an “Opinion” heading. Opinion articles masquerading as news are damaging to the public discourse.

I have to believe that a good number of Nugget readers adjust their perceptions to correct for conservative bias, but I know many people who don’t. Therefore, failing to label opinion pieces as such is a form of political manipulation.

In one of the larger metropolitan areas, this wouldn’t be cause for concern, because a person has access to many different media viewpoints, but in North Bay which is fully dominated by the Nugget, it is alarming to say the least.

Here’s hoping that whatever the result of the election in Nipissing, it reflects the will of the people, not the will of the North Bay Nugget.

Election 2007 is a GO!!!

… and apparently John Tory is going to run his first race to the Premier’s office after having taken his first step into some doggie doo doo.

To what degree will the media seize on his promise to fund private religion-based schools, including ones that would teach such things as creationism?

No joke – Tory actually said that these schools would have to teach evolution as per the curriculum, but that they would be free to teach the other “theories” out there, such as creationism!!!

By extension, could schools teach that the earth is flat? Check out the Book of Genesis, it’s in there. The earth is supposedly flat, and the sun orbits around the earth.

What about Scientologists? They have a religion, and maybe they will want to open some private schools on the government’s dime. If creationism can be taught in some religion-based private schools, then, in the interest of equality, the Scientologists should receive funding in order to teach impressionable young minds about Xenu, who was the dictator of the Galactic Confederacy and who, 75 million years ago, brought billions of his people to Earth in a spacecraft, stacked them around volcanoes and killed them using hydrogen bombs. Scientology holds that their essences remained, and that they form around people in modern times, causing them spiritual harm.

Tory can’t have it both ways, if he advocates religious equality, then every nutty religion is equal, not just the ones that aren’t currently the object of popular ridicule.

The media loves to grab hold of emotionally charged issues. It will be interesting to see if the Conservatives can bury this one, because if they can’t, this is going to be a long month for them. If creationsim turns out to be one of the defining issues of this election, Tory will not win this race. In fact, he may just face plant into a cow paddy about three feet short of the finish line, much to the amusement of those folks who are the product of millions of years of good old scientifically proven evolution.

Broken Promises

Show me a person who has cast a vote for a politician based on the “promises” that politician made, and I will show you a drooling idiot.

Here is the thing about promises – even when they are made with best of intentions, the conditions under which they are made can suddenly change.

Let’s say you’re a kid and you are bugging your Dad, who you know wants to do what it takes to please you, to take you to the park the next day to play some baseball. Your Dad, who genuinely wants to play baseball with you, promises to take you to the park. Sure enough, when you wake up the next morning, it is raining cats and dogs and the whole neighborhood is getting blasted to hell by lightning strikes. Your Dad turns to you and says, sorry, it looks like baseball isn’t going to be happening today.

If you throw a fit and accuse your Dad of breaking his promise, you are a drooling idiot.

Only an omnipotent person can make promises with 100% certainty of keeping them, and even the most well-intending people can be manipulated by circumstance to make promises.

Dalton McGuinty is not omnipotent, and he admits it. He has not been able to honour some of the campaign promises he made in 2003.

The broken promise that we will be hearing about most in the upcoming election is the one about “no new taxes”. Apparently, Mr. McGuinty’s government has decided to slap a health premium on us. Without making his excuses for him, I can imagine how he might have decided to break the “no new tax” promise. He made the promise during a campaign in which the incumbent Conservative government was claiming to have balanced the budget that year. However, they were lying, and it started raining red ink in McGuinty’s neighborhood and that year, instead of a balanced budget, Ontario was blasted by a multi-billion dollar deficit.

Unfortunately for the new premier, he was forced to choose between the “no new tax” promise and one of his other promises, which was to boost funding for health care, which had suffered from massive cutbacks under the Conservative government.

He chose to raise the money he needed to pay for the health care services that Ontarians demand. He decided that the most important thing for us to have is quality health care, and due to a change in circumstances that he could not foresee, we got a new tax as part of the deal.

A different government might have decided to (and was probably planning to) privatize the health care system and not raise taxes. Depending on one’s personal values, one might prefer this to paying the premium.

McGuinty’s performance should not be judged on whether he broke a promise, but rather on whether he chose to break the right promise.

Every lunch room has a blow-hard who postures as though he knows something and utters platitudes such as: “You can’t trust a thing politicians say. They are all full of it. They say one thing and do another.” Said blow-hard gets to take credit for having a viewpoint while not investing any time thinking.

If I could say one thing to every blow-hard out there, drooling on his ham sandwich, planning not to vote, or, to vote based on “promises”, it would be this: vote for a person, not a promise.

The right person will represent a set of values that you can respect, and will make decisions accordingly.

Strategy and the Leadership Issue

It is clear that both parties are running on the Liberal record, with the Liberals standing proud in defense of it, while the Conservatives point out broken promises. The Conservatives will hammer on the leadership issue, while the Liberals present Dalton McGuinty as a human being, who, while not perfect, works hard in service of this Province.

The platforms are only important in that they give the media a handle to grab onto and spin the issues. We’ll soon see how that is going to play out.

When the Conservative Party talks about leadership, I wonder what they mean these days? Leadership in the Harris days was when the Premier did something to enrage a chunk of the population, and then didn’t back down from the ensuing fight. He was a strong leader.

Dalton McGuinty has been remarkably boring in his leadership style. He hasn’t led the provinces teachers to go on strike. He hasn’t led Ontarians into selling off vital assets to American interests. His leadership style when handling Caledonia, for better or worse, has been decidedly different than Harris’ style when handling Ipperwash.

Leadership in politics very often means charisma, and this is the weakness in McGuinty that the Conservatives have chosen to exploit. The Conservatives aren’t so much trying to sell Tory as a leader as they are trying to impugn McGuinty for not being Keith Richards, the coolest guy in any room that he is in. The Liberals seem to be fully in agreement that McGuinty doesn’t have rock star appeal, that is why in this campaign, they will make every effort to make him into Ned Flanders, your excellent next door neighbor.

Here’s my take. A leader does not go out of his way to create divisions and animosity in the electorate for the pupose of political exploitation. I give McGuinty credit for not doing that which Mike Harris is famous for. If John Tory will not denounce the politics of division as practiced by the former Conservative government, I am afraid he is not the kind of leader that I am looking for. I’m looking for thoughtful and responsive leadership that prefers to avoid conflict and crisis. McGuinty, even though he isn’t the kind of person you need at your party in order for it to go off right, is the best leader running in this election.

The Writ is about to drop …

The writ drops on Monday, and this election promises to be interesting for different reasons than past elections in Ontario have been. This time around, there is no polarizing character or hot-point issues for the parties to rally voters for or against. On the provincial level, it will be fun to watch the parties, and the media struggle to set the tone and frame the public discourse for this election.  

The real fun will be in our riding of Nipissing, where party lines will be blurred as two genuinely interesting and excellent characters vie for the seat. Bill Vrebosch carries the Conservative banner, while Monique Smith seeks to be returned to Queen’s Park for another term. Oh ya – as per usual there will also be an NDP candidate trying to crack double-digit support. I’m sure he is a heck of a nice guy, but he’ll probably get ignored a lot in this blog. At this time, it is unclear whether or not the Green Party will even run a candidate.

There was a time when I would be more likely to eat a bowl of thumbtacks for breakfast than to vote Conservative. Ever since Mulroney and Harris tore the ass out of this country and province respectively, I have had nothing but contempt for that party. In fact, I still do, but although I have nothing good to say about the party, this riding has a Conservative candidate the commands respect. The Singing Mayor of East Ferris, Bill Vrebosch is a man of the people, his integrity and ability are unquestioned, and has built up a reputation for being a pillar of the community over 30 years of public service. I could vote for this man.

I could vote for Bill Vrebosch, but I will probably vote for Monique Smith. I think she has a great record, and I am particularly impressed with the fact that she has maintained grace under pressure as the local media has done a hatchet job on her and the Liberals over the past four years.