Transcript for Saturday, November 6, 2010 – 1830
Also airs Sunday, November 7, 2010 – 0700 and 0000
Monday, November 8, 2010 – 0630
Policing Caledonia
GUEST –
Christie Blatchford, Globe and Mail Columnist
Author of “˜Helpless – Caledonia’s Nightmare of Fear and Anarchy
And How the Law Failed All of Us’
Fighting Contraband Tobacco
GUEST – Dave Bryans, President
Ontario Convenience Stores Association
SEAN MALLEN: On this program we have often spoken about issues affecting First Nations, from social problems and poverty in the North, to land claims, to the harmonized sales tax. Many of them have been around longer than this province has been called Ontario. But few have been so contentious, explosive and vexing as Caledonia. Now a new book has turned a hearty spotlight back onto it.
Although it has long since slipped from the headlines the occupation of the Douglas Creek Estates in Caledonia continues to drag on. It started in 2006 when aboriginal demonstrators staged a blockade, claiming the planned housing development was going up on land that was properly their’s. There was an abortive attempt by the OPP to evict them, and then an uneasy standoff, with residents complaining that the police were not protecting them from harassment, and worse, from the protesters. A new book on the affair reveals the depth of those wounds.
(video clip)
Toby Barrett, MPP, Haldimand-Norfolk: She cites examples of political meddling by your office that has hamstrung police, put abstract ideology ahead of protecting victims from intimidation, home invasion and assault. Caledonia families detailed four years of suffering that you condone, with no end in sight.
The government strenuously denied interfering, while reminding everyone of the sensitivities of policing native demonstrations. The Ipperwash affair hangs over it all, where police shot and killed a protester named Dudley George, a tragedy that lead to an extensive inquiry.
Hon Chris Bentley, Attorney General: I think the Ipperwash inquiry provided us with some very, very important recommendations, and I think operational issues can be spoken to by the OPP and by the police that were on the ground doing the work. But we’re following the Ipperwash recommendations. There are very challenging, very challenging situations, and what we’ve seen over the years is that the shortest route is not always the best route.
On this week’s Focus – Caledonia Close Up
From the Global News Room in Toronto, this is Focus Ontario with Sean Mallen.
SEAN MALLEN: Thanks for joining me again. Later in the program we’ll talk about another touchy subject for First Nations, contraband tobacco. But first, Caledonia. It’s back on the stage because of a book titled “˜Helpless – Caledonia’s Nightmare of Fear and Anarchy, and How the Law Failed All of Us’. It’s written by Globe and Mail columnist, Christie Blatchford. She’s on a book tour now and joins me from the studios of Global BC in Vancouver. Welcome to Focus, Christie.
Christie Blatchford: Thank you, Sean.
SEAN MALLEN: Pretty provocative title. I kind of got the sense there was steam coming out of your ears as you wrote it. That sound about right?
Christie Blatchford: That’s about right. Certainly I felt steam coming out of my ears when I was sitting in a courtroom last fall in Hamilton, Ontario during a civil law suit by two Caledonia residents and that’s what sort of got me hooked on the story and obsessed to try and tell it properly. Periodically when you’re either reading this, or in my case when I was writing it, or sitting in a courtroom hearing it, you know you have to pinch yourself and say this can’t be quite right, you know I must be missing some piece and there wasn’t a missing piece.
SEAN MALLEN: At the heart of the story are interviews with many Caledonia residents, including Dave Brown, who was part of that lawsuit, sued for suggesting the government and the OPP weren’t properly protecting him. Tell one or two of those stories. Start with Dave Brown, what was his story?
Christie Blatchford: Well, Dave Brown’s house is uniquely located to Douglas Creek Estates. It’s bordered on it by two sides, and he’s essentially surrounded by the occupied site. There are about 450 other people who live on either side of the occupied site and were also very seriously affected, but Dave’s house was kind of uniquely located and his situation was a bit unique.
You know for more than a month long of the barricade period, as it’s called locally, he had to submit to native passport control basically. Natives had issued all the residents in the area these so-called passports. He had to show his passport to go to or from his home. Sometimes his car was subjected to illegal search and seizure of goods that he had, groceries or beer or something that he had been bringing home. Lights were shone on his home, his house was lit up basically by guys on ATV’s roaring around, and he was generally subjected to just I think a daily diet of intimidation and bullying, and maybe best exemplified in an exchange that he had once. It was captured on videotape. He had the video camera out because the occupiers were at the back of his back deck. He and his wife were out there trying to enjoy the night. A bunch of occupiers, many wearing masks, came around and started shrieking at them. There were fires near by and Dave was videotaping this. And at one point one of the occupiers said to him “˜turn that video camera off, you’re violating my rights’. And Brown didn’t turn the video camera off, but the absurdity of the person who was breaking the law illegally harassing somebody who was only trying to enjoy his private property was astonishing to me.
And this instance came up in court, and the government of Ontario lawyer said to Mr Brown, who was in the stand, “˜well you heard that woman say that, why didn’t you turn the video camera off’. And that was the Ontario government’s position, that the government believes that in the face of any kind of exertion of aboriginal power, native power, what the non-native resident of Caledonia should do is shut up, go back in his house, turn off his video camera and cower.
SEAN MALLEN: This is of course as we said all touched and overlapped by Ipperwash. You must concede though that policing these kinds of things are so sensitive now that the police are in an awful position. How do you settle this thing without causing a bloodbath?
Christie Blatchford: Well, I don’t accept that premise at all. Between the extremes of what happened at Ipperwash where Dudley George was killed, and I agree that that was a tragedy, and it was a result of a not very well executed police mission. Between that polar extreme and the polar extreme that we saw in Caledonia, which was policing of an entirely new kind, where the police did not protect the vulnerable, did not make contemporaneous arrests, did not conduct investigations, is a whole range of possible options that the OPP could have used, but they were paralyzed by the shadow of Ipperwash, and I believe the Liberal government was frightened by the shadow of Ipperwash.
You know Dalton McGuinty’s party rode to power in part on the strength of their daily questioning in the House, saying you know Mr Premier, when are you going to call an inquiry into Ipperwash? Mr Premier, you know – blah, blah, blah. So at the time that Caledonia happened, the Ipperwash inquiry was still going on, was still making headlines, there was tremendous internal pressure at Queen’s Park for the Liberals not to end up with their version of Dudley George. And I’m glad there’s no comparable version of Dudley George, no dead citizen.
SEAN MALLEN: Okay, I’m going to stop you there because I want to pursue the McGuinty government’s role in this a little bit more. We going to take a break right now, and back in a moment with Christie Blatchford.
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SEAN MALLEN: And we’re back talking with Christie Blatchford about her book on Caledonia. Christie, as you well know, the Premier and all the ministers responsible have consistently denied any interference in police operations. Former commissioner Fantino, current Commissioner Chris Lewis, have both been on the show denying any interference, saying there have been many arrests there. What’s your theory as to what went on with the police in Caledonia?
Christie Blatchford: Well, I don’t accept what the two commissioners, or the former commissioner and the Commissioner are saying. They were both knee-deep in it, and if it’s to anyone’s advantage to say there’s no interference with how we did our job, I suppose it’s them. If you accept that all those police officers, who normally every instinct in their body is to protect the vulnerable and to make contemporaneous arrests and all those things, if you believe what they’re saying, those executives of the OPP, and the government, you have to accept that by some miracle all of the front-line rank and file of the OPP decided on the same day, which was the second day of the occupation, to start referring to it in their notebooks as the “˜reclamation’, in other words adopting the protesters language.
You would have to assume that all the complaints that the Ontario Provincial Police Association, their union, received about the orders that they were getting, were fiction I suppose; you would have to believe that suddenly 500 or 1,000 police officers independently decided that this one time the discretion that they’re all allowed to exercise, they just chose not to exercise when a builder was beaten up, and a hydro transformer was torched, etc. It just defies any reasonable belief to accept what they say.
SEAN MALLEN: Just about two minutes left. A major character in your story is a guy named Gary McHale, who was originally an outsider, came in doing things like having demonstrations, wanting to wave the Canadian flag, really got under Fantino’s skin, was called a trouble-maker, a provocateur.
Christie Blatchford: An interloper.
SEAN MALLEN: Was he not though a provocateur?
Christie Blatchford: No, I don’t think so. I mean thirty years ago when a woman wore short skirts and a tight top, was she provoking rape by the manner in which she dressed? No, she was just being a young woman walking down the street, and really that’s all that Gary McHale and the handful of others in Caledonia ever did. They just didn’t want to accept the way that the town was being policed, so they protested, which was after all their right to do. Ninety-nine per cent of the worst violence that happened in Caledonia happened before Gary McHale even stepped foot in that town. That is demonstrable by the evidence and I think that then Commissioner Fantino, for some reason, just completely lost it with Gary McHale. There were interlopers and outsiders on that Douglas Creek Estates every day of the occupation from all over Canada and from the United States, and he never once vilified them as outsiders, and it culminated –
SEAN MALLEN: Sorry to interrupt, just about thirty seconds left, and I just want to get back to one point you raised in the first segment, suggesting there might be some kind of middle ground here in policing this. What are your ideas on the middle ground of policing this that might work better?
Christie Blatchford: To enforce the law the way you would enforce it with anyone else. Certainly I have never suggested, I would never advocate going on with guns blazing metaphorically or literally – but I think had the police acted like police. If there was a demonstration in my neighbourhood where somebody seized the Harbord Bakery because they said they had a claim on it, how long do you think they’d last? Not very long. You know, the police would come in.
SEAN MALLEN: Okay, we have to leave it there. Christie Blatchford, thanks for coming on the program.
Christie Blatchford: Thank you very much, Sean.
SEAN MALLEN: And back in a moment to talk about contraband tobacco.
* * *
SEAN MALLEN: This week I was presented with a startling number. More than a third of all the tobacco products sold in Ontario are illegal. The Convenience Stores Association is staging a road show around the province to complain about it all, complete with this mock-up of a so-called “˜smoke shack’. They say it’s not fair and it’s doing real damage to their business. Dave Bryans is the President of the Ontario Convenience Stores Association. Welcome to Focus Ontario.
Dave Bryans: Thank you, thank you for inviting me.
SEAN MALLEN: So that number that was quoted at their news conference was 35 per cent, even as high as 45 per cent of the cigarettes sold in this province are contraband.
Dave Bryans: Yes.
SEAN MALLEN: Where does that number come from and what kind of effect does it have on your members?
Dave Bryans: Oh, I can tell you that number – about four years ago we started studying why our business was declining. As the taxes were growing in Ontario under the government here we started noticing that people were not coming into our stores as often. So there was a study started called the GFK study, where they went into houses and asked people what are you smoking. Four years ago it was 15 per cent, now it’s as high as 48 per cent. We can go through all the numbers, but it grew year over year, and we met with the government and said over and over this is a tough hardship on our members. We are losing about three stores a day in Ontario because our members have such a high reliance on a legal product called tobacco to (get people to) come into their stores, because we’re basically the only channel that sells tobacco.
SEAN MALLEN: And I want to get your ideas about how to fight contraband. But first I asked the Minister responsible for this file about the government’s plans or means of fighting contraband. Here’s what she had to say:
Revenue Minister Sophia Aggelonitis: Some of the things that we have done, we have increased enforcement 44 per cent of enforcement has gone up. We’ve seized about $77 million illegal cigarettes. We will continue to work hard on it.
Sean Mallen: But how effective is it all if a third of the smokes being sold are illegal?
Sophia Aggelonitis: You know again it’s a complicated issue, something that we take very seriously. This is an issue that requires all of us to work together. We have to find a solution because too many of our young people are smoking.
SEAN MALLEN: So, they say that enforcement is up, seizures are up. Good enough?
Dave Bryans: Well, not good enough. I mean enforcement is up. There still is not enough manpower. The RCMP are doing a wonderful job in Ontario, but as this industry continues to grow remember over 800,000 people a week in Ontario have access to illegal cigarettes delivered to their houses, their schools, seniors’ homes, factories, malls, and the government has let it grow out of control, and I appreciate what the Minister is saying. I mean they are trying very hard, it is a complicated issue, and she being a new minister just getting up to date on the problem. But the government did not have to put HST, a new tax on cigarettes, to fuel it even further, and that’s what they did in the last six months.
SEAN MALLEN: Okay, taxation is a key thing. Years ago to fight illegal smokes the feds and the province cut tobacco taxes, they’ve crept back up. But that’s the point you guys have been raising, but given that tobacco is something they’re trying to encourage people to use less of, how can you make the argument that they should be reducing taxes on them?
Dave Bryans: Not once have we met with the government and asked them to reduce taxes. What we’ve said to the government is don’t increase taxes, don’t fuel something you’ve never controlled, something you’ve closed your eyes to and let grow to a proportion where half of all Ontarians who smoke are now buying their cigarettes illegally. They did not have to continue to increase taxes. By reducing taxes you’re not going to correct the problem in Ontario, because now a carton of cigarettes is $75.00 because they’ve been increasing them year over year, and a baggie off a reserve is $11.00. So the gap is so far now, that isn’t the answer to correct the problem any more. That was a made-in-1993 answer.
SEAN MALLEN: Okay, so what is the answer then?
Dave Bryans: The answer is first off let’s not continue to put rules to our members. What a government does, it usually runs to the legal market to try and look like it’s doing things right, as you just heard, look at how many seizures. But what they do is they actually pick on small business, because they ignore what’s going on out front of the stores. So we’re saying no new taxes, no new regulations, nothing until you correct contraband, or bring it down to 10 per cent. They’ve let it grow to 48 per cent and it’s embarrassing.
Secondly, if you talk about enforcement, how about giving local law enforcement – as the province of Quebec has – the seizure powers to go in and start enforcing the law in every community. Right now it only falls under the RCMP, the federal Tobacco Tax Act. So if an OPP officer stops a van in Chatham he has to call London and sit there with his lights flashing for two hours until an RCMP officer arrives to make the charge against the van.
SEAN MALLEN: The point has been made that a lot of this happens to smoke shacks on native reserves. Earlier in the program we were speaking about Caledonia. Many, many thorny issues about policing on native reserves. What do you do about smoke shacks?
Dave Bryans: Well, first off the smoke shacks on the reserves are not illegal, nor is the production facilities. They’re a legal entity licensed, whether it’s sovereign law, or whether it be federal tobacco laws, the federal government has licensed twenty-one production facilities on aboriginal lands in Ontario and Quebec. So they’re not illegal, and it isn’t about the reserves and the aboriginals, it’s about the illegal movement of cigarettes off the reserve, with organized distribution, and the RCMP have stated that over 150 known gangs are delivering cigarettes throughout Ontario and Quebec, making nothing but money. The government itself has lost a billion dollars last year, and the Auditor General will be coming out with that in December to tell the government – wow, you’re still aren’t doing your job. So they’ve allowed it to grow and it isn’t the aboriginal people. It’s people that use the reserve to move cigarettes in and out of the reserve.
SEAN MALLEN: Okay, but in order to get at it, you have to go on reserves.
Dave Bryans: Or you have to stay outside of the reserve and find out who’s doing it. I mean when you have tractor trailers of cigarettes moving around the reserve. I mean picture it – a million people a week get to buy these with no advertising, no promotion, no billboards, but they know how to get it. All the government has to do is stop the delivery and they could also collect all taxes on tobacco at source from every production facility in the country, and that would be one of the areas they could look at.
SEAN MALLEN: Now as I said this government’s priority is cutting the number of people who smoke tobacco. We just had one of the people from their task force on the subject on the program a few weeks ago, and one of their recommended ideas was to cut the number of people licensed to sell cigarettes, which leads to the question the trends are all away from selling cigarettes. Shouldn’t your people maybe try to look at a different kind of business model to make it work, getting away from this product?
Dave Bryans: Very good point. First off you don’t have to cut the number of stores selling tobacco, that is happening because of contraband. Stores are closing in record numbers, small families are being displaced. Secondly, smoke shacks are growing in record (numbers) and the government can’t do anything about it. And finally, there has to be a better model for our members, but because it’s happened so fast and government hasn’t even tried to look at the issue, and let it grow to this. No small business can reinvent itself. Hydro rates are increasing; these people don’t have capital to say you know let me rip out the back of the store and put in a coffee program. It’s not that simple. So it’s hurting small business and the government remember – you have to always remember this is a legal product, approved by the federal and Ontario government, collecting. Most of the money that goes to them we are actually their tax collector, so they shouldn’t be hanging small businesses out to dry, and that’s probably why we’re so passionate about it.
SEAN MALLEN: And everybody knows convenience store owners are some of the hardest working people in the economy. But just thirty seconds left, you suggested as we were talking before that one way to wean you from it is to get the ability to sell beer and wine.
Dave Bryans: We’d love to sell beer and wine, and then hopefully sometime before, during or after the next election people will realize that the evolution of retail, it’s sold in Newfoundland, it’s sold in Quebec, sold in British Columbia – beer, and consumers want access to beer and wine in convenience stores.
SEAN MALLEN: Seems to me I remember David Peterson talking about that just about 25 years ago, and when he got elected – . Anyway, thanks for coming on the program, Dave Bryans.
Dave Bryans: Thank you.
SEAN MALLEN: And still ahead on our final segment, your comments and the Play of the Week – Consults, Consults, Consults.
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Play of the Week
(video clip – Ontario legislature)
Hon Steve Peters, Speaker of the House: It’s now time for oral questions.
The word consultants has been an expletive around Queen’s Park ever since the eHealth scandal broke last year, which is why Tory MPP Ted Chudleigh was derailed in mid-outrage when he posed a question to the Health Minister:
Ted Chudleigh, MPP, Halton: Over the same time this government, Health Minister, has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on consultants, enough to cover the cost of Milton hospital’s expansion. Minister, please explain to my consultants – my constituents, why –
Interjections.
Ted Chudleigh: – you can also explain to your consultants why your priority has been hiring consultants, as opposed to the front line needs of the Milton hospital.
In responding Deb Matthews wisely avoided any cracks about Chudleigh’s miss-speak, but the Tory’s mouth betrayed him once again in his supplementary.
Ted Chudleigh: I think the message is very clear. My consultants -, my constituents mean a lot less than your Liberal consultants.
Note how even Chudleigh’s fellow Conservatives cracked up.
– – –
And now your comments. The Health Promotion Minister has said the government has no plans for any further bans, but the debate continues to smoulder over the idea of outlawing smoking in apartment buildings. First an e-mail from Andrew Atkins, who writes: “While smokers may find it a hassle to be required to leave their apartment and its sheltered entrance-ways to smoke, they’re hardly in a moral position to complain. For their disregard for their own health is hardly a legitimate rationale to demand the freedom or political privilege to impinge upon the health of others.”
And listen to this voice-mail: “I’m getting sick and tired of these people putting the smokers down. I think it’s absolutely disgusting. And what about the people that have these … and other people can’t stand smelly. Are they going to start on them too? Yes, I’m voicing my opinion because I’m very, very angry at the stupidity of mankind.”
Your opinions are an important part of our program. Here’s how you can register them. You can write me a letter the old-fashioned way to:
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And that’s our program for this week. I’m Sean Mallen, thanks for watching. Hope you can join us next weekend when we have a special edition profiling the transplant unit at Toronto General Hospital. Hope to see you then.
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