50 Replies to “Michael Coren with Christie Blatchford: Helpless”

  1. Dalton McGuinty is allowing a parallel system of government that even a far left progressive Pierre ‘watch me’ Trudeau had the common sense to confront back in the day.
    Trudeau:I think the society must take every means at its disposal to defend itself against the emergence of a parallel power which defies the elected power in this country and I think that goes to any distance. So long as there is a power in here which is challenging the elected representative of the people I think that power must be stopped and I think it’s only, I repeat, weak-kneed bleeding hearts that are afraid to take these measures.
    Good for Blatch for outing this deplorable injustice. This should be required reading in our high schools instead of the Kumbayah “just society” pap shoved at them these days.

  3. If you look at the Six Nations accounts for 2010 you will see that almost $15 million received from the federal and provincial governments makes up about a quarter of their assets for the year, and that this is twice the amount from last year.
    So, two things. One, the government had massive leverage over Six Nations at the time of the dispute and could have punished them if they wished.
    Two, the governments have INCREASED their funding of Six Nations since the dispute.
    And of course this doesn’t account for indirect funding such as health care and other infrastructure, a portion of which of course is paid by the taxpayers so ill served in Caledonia.

  4. Cjunk, I think Harper supports the Fantino candidacy because Harper and his “conservatives” have lost their way on this and so many other issues.
    Good for Blatchford. She encapsulates this atrocious example of banana republic, politically-directed policing just when McGuinty the Liar is trying to gloss his image for next year’s provincial election. Windmills, solar farms, e-health, Caledonia, broken promises on taxes, eco-fees — the list of McGuinty screw-ups just keeps growing.

  5. I dunno Cjunk, I think we should see what Fantino’s platform is like first. He may in fact be trying to correct the sort of thing that obstructed him and the OPP from doing their job in Caledona: Political interference.
    I met Fantino many years ago when he was a Police Superintendent in London. He impressed me as somebody with “brass balls” and a true crime fighter. An illegal towing operation in London, run by organized crime, stole my van and Fantino personally intervened (the criminals would hold the illegally towed vehicles “ransom” until the victim paid up). Fantino took on these thugs single-handedly — when they refused to open their compound and give me back my vehicle, Fantino went into his trunk, took out a pair of big metal cutters and busted open the fence…
    I honestly think a guy like that would have been chomping at the bit to bust these Caledonia Native thugs, but Liberal politicians prevented it.

  7. ricardo… that was my first thought when I heard fantino was considering the run for the CPC. Still waiting for him to disclose some thing about who was pulling the strings. He should be squirming with Blatchford’s revelations.

  8. Sadly, we see the RCMP going down the same road as the OPP. They stand by and watch anarchists loot and destroy businesses during protests at the Olympics and G20 meetings. They look kind of cowardly.

  9. “Is Christie Blatchford wearing a Halloween mask?”
    Christie doesn’t look well; I hope she is. Her book, I think, may turn out to be one of the more inportant books in Canada in the second decade.

  10. ricardo….
    xly it’s ‘chAmping’ at the bit….
    there is no charge for this service…

  11. ricardo: Why are people always looking for some “hidden” reason that Harper may do this or that? Does he have that many hidden agendas?
    I prefer using Occam’s Razor, which would suggest that Harper’s support of Fantino and silence on Caledonia is just a play for liberal votes … the base be damned. Fits with Harper’s stand on AGW, HRCs, government growth, etc., and the willingness of the base to take it up the arse just encourages him.
    I hope I’m wrong of course … but I doubt it.
    Blatchford, on the otherhand, is a national treasure.

  12. ditto bluetech. The OPP was still smarting from the Dudley George death up in Ipperwash, which may have also had to do with political interference — this time from the Conservative (Mike Harris) side. I could be wrong, but up until then the OPP didn’t seem to have a problem handling Native issues and there was a certain “rapport”.
    So the Liberals tried to compensate for past mistakes and over-reacted in the opposite direction — let’s don’t bust Natives at all!
    Lesson learned is politicians from every Party need to keep their noses out of policing…

  13. Blatch has done a good job of making clear the unfair results on ordinary Ontarians of a particular McGuinty /(Harper?) government policy. Others have posited that Fantino was supposedly easily co-opted to become OPP Chief by McGuinty so that he would not become Mayor of Toronto or leader of the PCs in Ontario and proceed to defeat the Liberals. Barb Hall was also probably deflected into the OHRC by McGuinty for similar NDP reasons.
    Fantino took the poisoned offer and got the job done. It wasn’t pretty but maybe there wasn’t much choice once he found out what he had gotten into.

  15. In the toxic world of political correctness, FNs trump most non natives. They have become the Palestinians while deeded land owners and licenced Crown tenure holders are considered the (unjust and occupying) Jews. Just as Enviro-protesters trump law abiding loggers (and now Oil Sands producers), Muslims trump feminists and free speech, and feminists along with all others trump Christians. Rule of Law is the first victim of toxic political correctness but it isn’t the last. McGuinty and his PC lap dogs should have to live in the disputed properties. One hopes that at least his political career should be punished from this mess.

  16. Just had it delivered from a pre-order. I don’t know if I can take reading it, I’d hate to end every day angry for a while.

  17. We begun to refer to the OPP as the “Ontario Political Police” (with much indignation from its members) shortly after bill C68 came into play and Michael Bryant began his reign of terror in Ontario through the office of the CFO, well before Caledonia. Christie’s book validates the appelation In the span of a two decades, the OPP have descended from being a very well liked and respected police force, to something akin to an Orwellian nightmare. We can’t give McGuinty all the credit, because Harris did have a hand, but Dalton sure knew how to run with the tool.

  18. Great interview by Coren. Always admire that he lets the person speak without constant interruption or interjection. Blatchford is a super writer and never puts up with BS. Have enjoyed her writing since the early days of the Sun.
    As I had previously mentioned while driving for the G20 many officers told me they were ordered to stand down and not interfere with the protesters, similar to Caledonia. Bet anything it was that POS coward McGuinty behind that also.
    Have zero respect for Fantino over Caledonia and angry he is running for the CPC and will write to them about it. I had written several letters to him during the confrontation and the returned ones from one of his flacks was Natives, blah, blah, tense situation, blah, blah.
    If he didn’t agree with the way things were going in Caledonia and as Blatchford said the OPP officers including a superintendent were livid over what was happening Fantino should have called a press conference, detailed what he was ordered to do by McGuinty then resign his position with his reputation intact.

  19. dave: “Fantino should have called a press conference, detailed what he was ordered to do by McGuinty then resign his position with his reputation intact”.
    Actually I don’t think Fantino had to do that at all — he could have just told McGuinty to shove it up his ass, called a press conference and denounced the political interference, and consulted the Attorney General to lay charges against McGuinty!
    McGuinty should have been forced to resign — I don’t think there’s anything in Legislation that requires Police to answer to the political whims of any politician when enforcing the law, including the Premier.

  20. Great interview. McGuinty is mostly too blame, although the Feds have to share some of it.
    Hey some of you single guys, I think Christie is still looking for guy, at least that is what she said not that long ago, I think.

  21. Fantinos’ fundamental issue, as he publically conveyed it, was that he was not prepared to put his officer’s lives at risk over the issue – ie he wasn’t prepared to order them to fight. Now, that may have been appropriate, if the political process was interfering, but… he and his officer’s have a larger obligation to “serve and protect” whether they like it or not. His refusal to engage is like a general refusing to order his soldiers into battler because somebody might get hurt.
    The fault for Caledonia however, lies with Gwen
    Boniface. Had she ordered her boys to clean up the Douglas estates within the first 36 hours like everyone was expecting, none of this would ensued. She had a conflict of interest, and placing her in the chair as commissioner was political correctness running amok. In the end, an even greater spectre of violence may result before its over.

  22. “not prepared to put his officer’s lives at risk”
    Sounds like more of the “same old, same old”, to justify politically-correct policing. Like why Mark Steyn was denied his venue to speak in London “for security reasons”.
    Hogwash. Security people, cops, etc., spend half their lives training precisely for these types of scenarios — they live for this stuff. The Military too — I remember how Canadian soldiers I met over the years used to complain how boring the miltary was because there was nothing for them to do. There were no wars to fight! Until Afghanistan that is, and evev with all the dangers these guys keep volunteering for repeat tours.
    Cops, Military, Professional Security, are not afraid of risk — they love it.

  23. MAtt2 Thanks for all the work you do on the vids & video’s. It takes up lifespan & I figure I’m not the only one grateful for your efforts.
    JMO

  24. ricardo said it right They tried to compensate for past mistakes.. and over reacted in the wrong direction.
    However their is quite a difference Between this situation & ipperwash.
    The difference’s being Ipperwash their were no civilians directly involved, this was federal property The old Iperwash millitary facility.
    Caledonia involves private property & many innocent families who’s lives would be & have been in danger. If their was a rush by the police to remove the native protestors & timebomb could explode with ramnifications no one wants & McGuinty dont want that on his watch. This could explain the Fantino part she talks about. also Blatchford is correct at the end of vid., Negotiations is the only way of which none have so far succeded.
    And in the meantime the police are ordered to standown Kinda like a UN peace keeping mission in a sense.

  25. btw i too also say thanks Matt & to kate for posting that episode i had wanted to watch that one & missed it.

  26. And,again, we are thankful to Kate for posting relevant and important video. I, too, missed this one. I sincerely feel for the people of Caledonia. They were and are severely wronged by the very people charged with protecting them and had to witness real discrimination in favour of a politically correct pandering to the Six Nations and their terrorism against innocent , hard working and TAX paying citizens. It is shameful and the Conservatives should have done something about it at the time. Cutting their funding would have been a darn good start. And throwing quite a few of them in jail for seconds!

  27. Matt has had a few good videos lately to add to the discourse here at SDA. Thanks Matt.

  28. And the sad thing is the people of Caledonia had pretty decent relations with Six Nations before — they didn’t deserve to be punished for this.
    But a lot of the Native radicals aren’t even Canadian, and some aren’t even Native. The radical Mohawks and their Left mentors from the U.S. side have incited a lot of the conflict. This was especially the case with the infamous “golf course” dispute outside Montreal a number of years ago, when the Canadian military was called in after a cop was killed.
    The “Akwesasne” Mohawks on the U.S. side have been radicalized with Marxist ideology for years. When the Marxist Sandinista government of Nicaragua massacred its own Miskito Natives during the “contra” war of the 1980’s, the N.Y. Akwesasne Mohawks took the side of the Sandinistas! Unbelieveable, but true.
    There’s a lot more politics, crime, and intrigue happening behind the scenes with these conflicts than meets the eye. And both peaceful Natives and non-Natives suffer the consequences.
    The biggest deficit Canada has is very few of its Native land claims have been settled; whereas, in the U.S. almost all of its Native land claims were settled years ago. So their radicals come up here to raise shit.

  29. Congrats to Christie for bringing to the forefront a story largely neglected by the mainstream media..I went to 2 Chapters looking for her book dealing with the Caledonia occupation.I had difficulty finding it because ,although just available,it wasn’t displayed with new releases but hidden on the back shelves of social studies…Hmmmm…and Fantino,who at one time had a set of balls,seems to have handed them to McSquinty ….Can’t understand his reasoning…a real sell out of the citizens of Caledonia

  30. Still don’t understand why the police didn’t fire their guns when the natives drove right at one of their officers as they were trained to do. How were they forced out of their car when they were fully armed? Bet the American ATF guys were really impressed. As Blatch noted how can you not defend your own fellow officers.
    I am still at a loss how trained officers can totally ignore citizens in peril. I don’t care what their political masters told them their directives as officers of the law would have taken precedent. This has always bothered me about the Caledonia debacle.
    Remember when the SWAT team from Toronto was asked to assist in Caledonia and the OPP told them to face the citizens of the town rather than the native thugs. Their commander to the OPP commander to F*** O** and never call us here again and re-boarded their buses and left!

  31. “Still don’t understand why the police didn’t fire their guns when the natives drove right at one of their officers…”
    1) There was a ton of people standing around at the time.
    2) No doubt they were told if they fired on anybody they better have taken a bullet first, or they would end in the slammer.

  32. BTW Christie Blatchford had her book signing today in Caledonia, it was so well attended I couldn’t get near it. Full parking lot, three cop cars there “keeping order”.
    Way to go Christie!

  33. Phantom:
    Just caught the news clip on CHTV. Loved the comments by those in line to purchase the book.
    Having lived in the area for some 20 years and having connections to Caledonia, I guarantee these people are the real thing.

  34. Dave those cops know that if they stepped into intervene they’d be fired within the hour and then whoever was getting terrorized would still be getting terrorized except now the cop’s family would be on food stamps. It’s not worth it. It’s just easier taking down a chump armed with a flag instead of a goon armed with a knife. You’d might even be given a commendation or something!

  35. Abe Froman – Christie Blatchford has never been a looker, but you gotta love her, after all, looks aren’t everything. Why she still works for the TGM I’ll never know, she did work briefly for the National Post at one time but switched back.
    On the whole matter at hand, and I know this sounds petty, but I was doing a xword in the Van Province and the clue was “The Father of Manitoba”. Didn’t have a clue, but the answer turned out to be “Riel”. Odd, as I was taught that he was basically a half-breed brigand and a traitor. Just goes to show how history is sometimes a matter of conjecture by whomever is writing it, and it is always subject to change.

  36. Dave at 5:33, “Remember when the SWAT team from Toronto…”
    I’m pretty sure (but not 100%) that was the Hamilton cops Dave. They haven’t been seen out here since 2006, that’s for sure.
    Either way, the commander of that force did indeed tell the OPP to shove it and departed the scene.
    Incidentally, the Mohawks have tried their BS a couple times over at the new Ancaster Fair Grounds off Highway 53. Each time the Hamilton cops see them off with zero drama. Same clowns from the DCE, no problem. Trespassing is illegal in Hamilton, not so much in OPP jurisdictions.
    Witness the illegal smoke shops along #6, I drove past them out to Hagersville today. Every one illegally squatting on land they don’t own. Torques me off every time.

  37. We don’t hear allot of multicultural cheers from the first nations.
    Guess they figure that Mohammed is not a desirable name for over half their new births.
    Where is the liberal left on the rights of aboriginal Canadians and the inevitable encroachment of Islam and Sharia?
    It is doubtful that the original European Christian treaties will still hold once Islam takes over, and no doubt there will be an end to all the subsidies and tax exemptions.

  38. I watched this last night and my blood is still boiling.
    The government of Ontario have proven to the taxpayers that they are incompetent, lazy and cruel. None of this should ever have happened.

  39. Wait until summer. There is a provincial election next October. Rural Ontario has a score to settle with Smitherman and Mcguinty.
    I will either explain more next week or I will be in jail.

  40. Kudos to Blatchford!
    I hope Julian Fantino (OPP Commish at that time, and now a federal Conservative candidate in Vaughan) hangs the entire Caledonia outrage around McGuinty’s progressive neck during the next election, federal or Ontario.
    If Fantino ‘tongue dances’ on the OPP’s handling of Caledonia he’ll poll lower than the Greens.

  41. Watched the Coren interview – now I’m dying to read the book.
    It’s a situation like this that causes people to lose respect for the police, both the victims who aren’t being protected, and the so-called Mohawk warriors, who are laughing at the cops’ weakness.
    Money quote; The Mohawk Warrior flag was OK; The Canadian flag was “provocative”.

  42. I have no idea why people STILL have respect for the police. It’s nothing short of a miracle that David Chen walks away free. Imagine if someone HAD performed a citizen’s arrest on one of the thugs at Caledonia. Guess which person would be in prison.
    The powers that be are doing the exact opposite of what they should do. Why? What could they get out of the reserves? There can’t be any amount of money or support worth what went down in Caledonia.
    Every time Fantino or McGuinty show their faces, remind them of Caledonia. Remind them how livid you are. Remind them that the true political power lies in the hands of the screwed over, not the thugs.

  43. Osumashi said: “Imagine if someone HAD performed a citizen’s arrest on one of the thugs at Caledonia.”
    Its important to understand what we are dealing with here. If some Whitey tried to take down one of them I very much doubt he would have survived the experience. Either they’d have done him on the spot, or later in jail after the cops roughed him up.
    These guys are no different than the mob or the bikers. Plus they have police protection.
    Christie is actually soft peddling the situation.

  44. I have ordered the book as a gesture of support for Christie and for the unfortunate folks caught in the crossfire of this mess, but I will need to step back until I am calm before I read it. I lived briefly in Port Dover which is only about 30 km from Caledonia. What struck me at the time is that, except for the detour around the town, everything (to the outsider) seemed so ordinary. Yet, folks were trying to move out and salvage what they could from selling their homes–impossible, of course. Why are such things allowed to happen? Are we really so cowardly? If the police are not allowed to stand up for what’s right, what is there left for our society to do? The government has so very sadly, let everyone down.

  45. I suppose that question was hypothetical to the extreme, Phantom. I was only trying reinforce the corner we’ve been backed into.
    Speaking completely from hindsight, the thugs should never have had the power they had. Even if we could cut funding from the reserves and recoup the losses from Caledonia and the surrounding area by withholding whatever money we give the aboriginals, what could we do with what you described as “the mob”? Will there be an organised crime task force for the reserves?
    (not likely)

  46. Cjunk: “I prefer using Occam’s Razor, which would suggest that Harper’s support of Fantino and silence on Caledonia is just a play for liberal votes … the base be damned. Fits with Harper’s stand on AGW, HRCs, government growth, etc., and the willingness of the base to take it up the arse just encourages him. I hope I’m wrong of course … but I doubt it.”
    You’re absolutely not wrong. The fact is, governing federally in Canada means a race to the middle. That’s the brilliant thing about Harper’s uniting of the right — your votes are guaranteed, therefore your interests aren’t a priority. After all, where else are you going to go?
    “Why, I’ll stay home on election night!,” one might threaten. And risk the Liberals re-taking power? Oh please. That’s almost as self-deluded as insisting that Harper’s only strategically playing politics in the short-run to secure his majority, after which his true conservative principles will re-emerge.

  47. larben at 7:16 PM: “On the whole matter at hand, and I know this sounds petty, but I was doing a xword in the Van Province and the clue was “The Father of Manitoba”. Didn’t have a clue, but the answer turned out to be “Riel”. Odd, as I was taught that he was basically a half-breed brigand and a traitor. Just goes to show how history is sometimes a matter of conjecture by whomever is writing it, and it is always subject to change.”
    It’s just another modern PC invention. You should go read Darcy’s take on the man. Darcy, BTW, is Metis.

  48. Yeah, politics aside Davenport, you have any opinions on the whole Caledonia situation? You know, two tier judicial response, cops watching idly while other COPS almost get run over, stuff like that tweak your worry bone at all?
    Or is it all the same to you?
    Did you like how the “hands off” plan played out at the G-20 this summer, by the way? I thought the way they let the black block get away with all that breakage was -awesome-. Damn capitalist shop keepers taking it in the @**, great job cops! Solidarity baby!
    By the way, I agree with you about Cjunk’s comment. Try not to faint.
    I believe Fantino’s own actions since 2006 make him possibly the worst EVER candidate for the CPC, and Harper’s support of him is troubling. Harper has reasons, I’m sure. Whatever those reasons are, they are not good enough to put this man on the ticket.
    What am I going to do on election night? Vote CPC obviously. Fantino was a tool of Liberal policy. Being merely a tool doesn’t excuse him even slightly, but the truth is he didn’t author the policy. Liberals did, most likely McGuinty himself. How great a fool would one have to be to allow that lot in power, given what they’ve done?
    If I lived in Fantino’s riding though? Not a chance I’d vote for the guy, and most likely I’d campaign against him. Some truths are not to be swept under the rug for political expedience. Fantino has proven he’s unfit for duty, by his own hand.
    Herein lies the fundamental difference between conservative and liberal.

  49. Louise @ 6:03 Great reference and great blog, thanks for the heads-up, worth keeping an eye on.

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