National Post Should Re-Read the Constitution

Not a newspaper to let facts ruin a tirade against anyone other than right-wingers, the Post came up with this gem this morning:

"In terms of the land holdings at play, the Caledonia crisis is small compared to similar disputes in other parts of Canada. But this is beside the point. The bottom line is that a group of hooligans is openly flouting the government -- and Mr. Mc-Guinty [sic] has done nothing about it except attempt to shift blame to Ottawa."

Leaving aside the characterization of Caledonia's protesters as "hooligans" and the National Post's general (willful?) ignorance of the more complicated historical issues involved in native rights, this is a federal issue! Read the constitution, National Post. The feds have been happy to leave this problem in Ontario's hands for a couple years now, if the federal government stepped in on the original land claim matter, Ontario might have more authority to resolve the issue.

Further Thoughts on Protesting

Since I seem to have caught the attention of at least a few of the parties involved in the Caledonia dispute, I feel like I should clarify a few things:

I'm absolutely in favour of protests. A free society should not make decorum its primary concern. Like I said in the original post, this issue must make everyone involved frustrated beyond belief, I would probably protest too.

While I'm in favour of protests, there needs to be focus and proportionality to them. Bringing a message to Queen's Park may entail blocking off the traffic circle around the provincial parliament and even University Ave to the south. That makes sense, you are bringing your point to your audience.

I would even say that make a visible convoy down the QEW makes sense. It raises your profile. What I don't see the point of is deliberately slowing traffic on that highway. It's a sort of approach that irritates people in a way that I don't believe wins them to your side. I don't normally drive the QEW but I do have to commute to work. I can imagine that if I faced such a situation my response would be "get these people out of the way!" more than "let me investigate the underlying problems that have caused people to launch such a protest, if their cause is meritorious, I shall join myself to it."

Punishing anyone on the highway (wage slaves rushing to jobs et cetera) is probably not a successful long-term strategy. There are more innovative, effective ways to drum up support, I assure you.

Friendly Advice to Caledonia Residents

Nice of you folks to come to Toronto, our tourism industry can use all the help it can get. Unfortunately, you made a bit of a faux pas. You see, driving slow on our roads is not a way to earn our sympathy. We understand your pain, really we do. I mean you're caught between the feds and the Six Nations in a dispute that, while legitimate, must make daily life a mess. Worse yet, you have out of town professional village idiots like Gary McHale coming down to stir things up.

Anyway, we in Toronto don't really get sympathetic to slow driving on highways during the middle of the week. The impression that it gives is that you are unemployed (why not on Saturday?) jerks who like to piss off commuters. It's probably not the impression you wanted to create, but we can't help thinking that way. I don't care if the Six Nations did it to you, it didn't exactly make you sympathetic to them, so don't expect that result from us.

Toronto is not a government town really. Yeah the parliament is here, but there's so many other things going on that frankly we sometimes forget. In that way it just seems like "here's another bunch of out-of-town jerks pissing us off to make a point to Dalton." There's not a great swath of civil servants here (proportionate to those employed in other sectors) so it's not as though they carry your message into their place of work.

The same thing goes for sundry farmers' groups that show up here. Making us late for work, or to get home from work, does not make us sympathetic. We understand that you have legitimate grievances, so do we, but we don't drive our cars all over your towns and snarl traffic.