Christie Blatchford:Helpless
Christie Blatchford’s Helpless begins with a story. On June 9, 2006 Kathe and Guenter Golke of Simcoe Ontario went for a drive. The 68 and 66 year old wound up in Caledonia, which had been in the news recently due to what they used to call in the movies an Indian incursion.
The Natives of the 6-Nations reserve East of Brantford had taken over an housing development, known as the Douglas Creek Estates, due to a land claim dispute.
Driving through Caledonia the Golke’s slowed down to have a look at the Estate property. A woman on a motorcycle raced up to them:
“Is there a problem?” and then let fly a torrent of verbal abuse, accusing them of coming to “look at the bad Indians.”
They were soon surrounded by First Nations, attempting to stop their car. They spotted an OPP cruiser and went for help. Twenty or so First Nations followed, then surrounded and attacked their car. They jumped on the hood, grabbed for the steering wheel and attempted to open the car doors, while the Golke’s were parked beside the OPP car, talking to the officer.
It was one of three incidents that day, the one that was less newsworthy. A couple of senior citizens are attacked by a mob is much less interesting to big city editor than a policeman or an MSM cameraman assaulted. But it was the most telling: the First Nations had a complaint, so attacking a couple of innocent senior citizens is OK.
The surprising thing about Helpless: Caledonia’s Nightmare of Fear and Anarchy, and How the Law Failed All Of Us is how often you put the book down and seethe in quiet anger. Two governments and three OPP Chiefs, including Conservative MP Julian Fantino and his successor Chris Lewis, utterly and completely failed the people of Caledonia. However, it is original Commissioner Gwen Boniface and Inspector Ron George, director of the OPP Aboriginal Relations Team who takes the most blame for the force’s complete lack of action in Caledonia.
Ron George, it should be noted, is cousin of killed First Nations protester Dudley George. Yet without fear of conflict of interest, he was front and centre in the OPP’s decision making process.
The story of Caledonia is about the people who live there, and the people charged with protecting them not failing to do so, but refusing. Sixth line, on the south side of the Douglas Creek Estates, was populated by country homes, owned by non-natives. Although native occupiers of the Estates often criminally harassed the residents, the OPP refused to respond to calls on the sixth line for over three years.
The residents of sixth line were abandoned by those charged with keeping the law in Ontario, a state of Anarchy that they never asked for or did anything to deserve.
Christie Blatchford’s Helpless: Caledonia’s Nightmare of Fear and Anarchy, and How the Law Failed All Of Us is a quick, easy read. One of those books you start, curl up with, and find you’ve read half of it by dinner time. My only complaint is that the book is not broken into enough chapters. A chance to breath, and to let some of the anger that overtakes you breath, would help drive the point of the book home: “the failure of government to govern and to protect all it’s citizen’s equally.”
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