Tell the Truth, Pay the Price

Christie Blatchford at
the book signing

Last night I went to a book-signing for Christie Blatchford's Helpless, a book about how the residents of Caledonia, a pretty rural area near Hamilton, Ontario, have lived in a state of near-siege since 2006, perpetuated by aboriginal protesters unhappy about real estate developments they feel encroach on their lands.

Helpless puts forth the thesis that the government of Ontario and the Ontario Provincial Police failed the citizens of Caledonia by pursuing a two-pronged approach to the situation: appeasement of the protesters, and the refusal to protect and uphold the rights of non-aboriginal citizens. The OPP, with the blessing of Queen's Park, seat of the Ontario legislature, stuck to a policy of non-interference even as the natives grew more brazen and aggressive, and the protests spread from the disputed land to town itself.  Citizens and landowners of Caledonia (and others just passing through) were subject to harrassment, intimidation, and acts of vandalism and outright violence, while the OPP stood by and let it happen.  The book details the abandonment of the rule of law, or, more accurately, how the law was unjustly applied to some residents of Caledonia, but not others. Aboriginals protested with impunity and non-natives were arrested for flying the Canadian flag, or anything else the OPP deemed "provocative" or "confrontational."  Blatchford believes that the blame does not lie with the rank-and-file members of the OPP, many of whom were distressed by their inability to act; the hands-off directives came from Commissioners Gwen Boniface and Julian Fantino, who, ironically, is now the member of Parliament for Vaughn, the riding which includes Caledonia.

Blatchford has a no-nonsense, tell-the-facts-exactly-as-they-are style; her loyalty is to the truth, not some bigger political agenda. But by showing the actions of the native protesters to be both violent and illegal,  Blatchford breaks the rules of political correctness; naturally, this ruffles feathers. On November 12, members of the Anti-Racist Association at the University of Waterloo managed to shut down her speech, and organizer Dan Kellar claimed that Blatchford had, in the past, "glorified" neo-Nazi Ernst Zundel, then compared her to Julius Streicher.

I've long been a fan of Blatchford, and I was not very happy to hear her slandered. I wanted to know what Blatchford herself had to say.  So I popped off the following e-mail:

Dear Ms. Blatchford:

I am sitting with a cup of coffee at my kitchen table reading about how a few yahoos with opinions contrary to yours managed to curb free speech at the University of Waterloo. One of these individuals accuses you of anti-Semitism, stating that “older members of the ARA [Anti-Racist Association] remember her ‘glorifying’ neo-Nazi Ernst Zundel” (National Post, page A6, second column).

I will confess that I am not currently a subscriber to the Globe and Mail, but I was many years ago, and I always enjoyed your writing. You didn’t strike me as a racist or Nazi sympathizer, but perhaps I missed something. I was quite annoyed to read about your mistreatment, and would like to know how you will respond to this accusation. I suspect, if anything, you supported Zundel’s right to free speech, which is a legitimate view, rather supporting his actual views, which are repellent. And perhaps this man is just out and out lying. Really, what I would like to know, as a long-time fan of your writing, is, what the hell is he talking about?

I received the following reply, in Blatchford's succinct, to-the-point tone:

He's a liar, period. I'm a Zionist, if anything, and all I ever would have defended about Zundel was his right to speak, and I don't remember even doing that.

Thanks for the note.

C

I thought as much.



Anyone who thinks Blatchford is a racist hasn't read the book.  She openly acknowledges that many injustices, from the glacial pace of aboriginal land claims to the residential school scandal, have plagued Canada's aboriginal community for decades, if not centuries, and that these issues "are one way or another in the background of everything that occurred in Caledonia." In other words, the members of the Six Nations (and other native groups in Canada) have justified grievances. These grievances, however, do not give them free license to terrorize their neighbours; people have a right to live in peace and security, and they rely on the government to provide this protection under the rule of law.  The book is not anti-aboriginal; it is a condemnation of the Orwellian situation in Caledonia, where in principle all are equal in the eyes of the law, but in practice some are more equal than others.