By Judi McLeod
Saturday, December 16, 2006
Some five and a half hours after her husband Gary McHale was led away in handcuffs by the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP), his 45-year-old wife Christine was keeping a lonely and worried vigil in Caledonia, Ontario.
"I'm all churned up inside, mostly worried about that they won't feed Gary, who suffers from Crohn's Disease," Mrs. McHale, told Canada Free Press.
The Canadian flag-waving Gary McHale, was one of three individuals arrested at today's rally at the site of the ongoing aboriginal occupation of the southwestern Ontario community.
all three were charged with breaking the peace. Watched by Mrs. McHale, two were later set free at OPP headquarters, but an OPP officer told Christine who had asked where her husband was, "We're keeping Gary overnight and will show his bail hearing by video."
When Mrs. McHale asked the officer why her husband was being kept while the other two were allowed to return to their homes, the officer replied,"I can't comment on that."
"I'm worried that they won't feed him Gary and that his blood pressure will start to drop," Mrs. McHale, holding back tears told CFP in an interview.
The couple had been pulled over by the OPP on their arrival at the rally and advised that the officers would be maintaining the peace.
McHale, Mark Vandermaaas, and an unidentified person were arrested by OPP shortly before noon today as they crossed into disputed territory waving Canadian flags.
Christine had been standing across the road from where her husband was when she saw the police arrest Mark Vandermaas,
"I saw the police force Mark to the ground. They ripped the flag out of his hand and I heard the pole hit the ground, and my heart froze when I heard someone in the crowd said,"Oh, they've got Gary too."
Saddled down with a camera and a huge flag, Mrs. McHale, ran dodging traffic to try to get to her husband across the road. She arrived to see her husband, with his hands handcuffed behind his back being placed in the back of a police van.
"I yelled to him where's your camera and the last thing I heard him say was"stay peaceful, don't do anything illegal," she said.
She went with Mark's wife Debby to the OPP unit and never expected to hear that her husband would be detained overnight.
"It is my personal opinion that they let the others go and kept Gary just to get even with him," she said.
Gary McHale's protest against the Dalton McGuinty-led Liberal Government's mishandling of the aboriginal takeover of Douglas Creek Estates is beginning to take on the tones of a Patriot Odyssey.
Seemingly maligned by the government, the OPP, and the aboriginals who seized the land, much has been made of McHale's Richmond Hill Ontario residency by the mainstream media.
McHale, whose website, www.caledoniawakeupcall.com tracks the ongoing Six Nations occupation the Caledonia housing project, is seen as the face of the residents' protest to the occupation which began last February.
The archly politically correct provincial government, which bought the land in dispute and has been promising resolution ever since, tried unsuccessfully to lay the dispute at the door of an unwitting federal government and recently brought in former Toronto police chief Julian Fantino as OPP head.
Citing the potential for violence, the government and police have tried to dissuade protesters from a no-go zone at the housing development.
"Mr. McHale's plans were counterproductive and potentially dangerous to what we've been trying to do here, and that is to reach a peaceful settlement," said David Ramsay, Ontario's minister responsible for aboriginal affairs.
a protest in October resulted in a two-hour standoff with police after protesters attempted to storm the contested land.
"I've twice now offered Mr. McHale the opportunity to protest at Queen's Park. In fact, I said I would sponsor his rally and set up a platform and a microphone, a Pa system for him."
But McHale and Company, who accuse the government of dereliction of their duty in Caledonia, want nothing to do with"the hypocrisy of a government-sponsored protest".
He accuses some elements of the OPP of being the lapdogs of the provincial government and says the police uphold the law to a different standard for aboriginals, allowing them to defy the law while protecting them.
He says police are biased because while they allow aboriginal protesters to erect Six Nations flags, they don't allow himself and others to erect Canada's flags.
"Police have one set of policies for natives and another set of policies for non-natives," he said before today's rally.
McHale says this is not a fight against natives but against politicians and police who use politically correct times to ignore the Charter of rights,"that clearly says there's not to be any discrimination against any citizen based on their religion, beliefs, race or their skin colour."
"My husband is not anti-native, or anti-anybody. He is worried about what appears to be a two-tiered system in Ontario," said McHale's wife.
She explained he graduated from Canadian Politics 101 shortly after 9/11.
"The Conservatives had come up with security measures, which the Liberals were against. Gary faxed our local MP Brian Wilford asking him how he voted. He was picked up by York Region Police and spent the night in jail. The arrest was for sending three faxes, which the MP claimed harassed him in the middle of the night."
Married for 25 years, the couple work together at home and share a love for wildlife photography.
"We were highschool sweethearts and met in of all places, math class.
"Gary's my husband and also my best friend," she said.
Canada Free Press founding editor Most recent by Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 30 years experience in the print media. Her work has appeared on Newsmax.com, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, Glenn Beck. Judi can be reached at: judi@canadafreepress.com
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