By arthur Weinreb
Wednesday, November 1, 2006
at least not yet.
On Thursday, newly sworn-in Ontario Provincial Police commissioner, Julian Fantino gave his first media briefing at OPP Headquarters in Orillia. The province's highest ranking cop made a couple of statements that appear to some to be contradictory. These statements were in regard to the issue that will keep Fantino on centre stage – the native occupation in Caledonia.
On the one hand, Fantino said that his force will not allow or tolerate lawlessness in Caledonia. He said, "Our role will be to preserve the peace and that's what we're going to stay focused on.” at the same briefing, the commissioner said that "These issues [the occupation] are greater than what the police can ultimately resolve. Fantino stated that the dispute was up to the elected governments to resolve, not the police.
There has been some criticism of the latter statement, in the blogosphere and elsewhere, that by saying that it was not up to the police to resolve the standoff, he was no different than his predecessor who was perceived by many to have been just a lackey for the McGuinty government. This line of thinking concludes that with Julian Fantino heading the OPP, the situation in Caledonia will remain the same.
But things have changed in Caledonia since the occupation began last February. The owners of the land had obtained an injunction that ordered the occupation to cease and in april the OPP began to remove the protesters. When the police faced resistance, they simply backed down and allowed barriers to be erected. It was hard not to draw the conclusion that the police refused to carry out a lawful order of an Ontario court because they were urged to do so by their political masters at Queen's Park. Dalton McGuinty had done a wonderful job as leader of the official opposition by painting then-premier Mike Harris as the killer of Dudley George, the native who was shot by the OPP during a similar occupation at Ipperwash. McGuinty's political survival then became dependent on no similar occurrence taking place in Caledonia and the OPP, led by then Commissionatrix, Gwen Boniface, seemed only too happy to oblige. Court orders didn't seem to matter much.
But that was then and this is now. Since april, the province has bought the land. The McGuinty government owns it. They have the right to do anything they want with it from erecting statues of George Smitherman and Greg Sorbara on it to allowing the natives to continue their occupation while the Ontario taxpayers pay their utility bills. The occupation per se is not a police issue; it's a political issue.
Since the occupation, residents of Caledonia have been complaining about two-tiered justice. according to some residents, non-natives who are believed to have broken the law are arrested while no actions are taken against natives who have been found in the same circumstances. There have been reports of natives committing assaults and other violent acts in front of OPP officers who lounged against their vehicles and did nothing other than watch. all that really can be expected of Julian Fantino is to have his officers keep the peace, prevent lawlessness and uphold the law by treating all people; natives and non-natives, equally and take action based upon conduct, not race.
as appealing as a Fantino-led coup at Queen's Park might be, we do not live in a police state. It's not up to Julian Fantino and the OPP to resolve the situation in Calendonia. and as pitiful as it is to watch Dalton McGuinty beg the federal government to come up with a solution, it is up to our elected representatives to conclude the dispute; not the police. It is unrealistic to expect Julian Fantino and the OPP to resolve the mess that the politicians have created.
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