Ontario has reached a $20-million settlement with businesses and homeowners in Caledonia to compensate for losses they suffered during an aboriginal land-claims protest.
But the greater land-claim issue that drove the protesters to take over a subdivision in the first place cannot move forward without the help of the federal government, Ontario’s Attorney-General says.
“In the broader issue, let’s not pretend there are easy answers or resolutions,” Chris Bentley said.
The settlement, announced on Friday, will be distributed to a group of 400 businesses and 440 households. They were part of a class-action lawsuit against the Ontario government for damages resulting from the protests that began in 2006. The protesters were from the nearby Six Nations reserve, which is next to Douglas Creek Estates, the disputed subdivision now owned by the provincial government.
Mr. Bentley, who is also Ontario’s Minister of Aboriginal Affairs, said no decisions have been made regarding the land.
It is up to the federal government to join the provincial government and the first nations community to resolve the land-claim dispute that has raged on for over 200 years in Caledonia, Mr. Bentley said.
He said he was relieved that province and the plaintiffs reached an agreement without spending countless dollars in court.
An administrator will be hired to distribute the $20-million. The compensation will be handled in two payments, the first in October and the second in March, 2012.
John Findlay, who represented the homeowners and businesses in the case, called it “a good settlement.”
“I’m glad to see we can get some compensation for businesses and residents,” he said. “I think it’s been a long slog we’ve had.”
The settlement is not the best-case scenario for some residents. Homeowner Bo Chausse, one of the plaintiffs in the suit, called the settlement “the first successful campaign against the government,” but said that the province should never have bought the disputed land in the first place. Instead, he said, it should have removed the native protesters.
Mr. Chausse’s views echo many Caledonians’ disappointment in how the province handled the native occupation. “It’s a sad day when you have to sue your government to get proper compensation for a mess they’ve created,” he said.
Patrick Woolley, who represented the subdivision’s contractors in the class-action suit, said he lost his land-surveying business because people are now afraid to develop in Caledonia. “Nobody has the courage to go ahead,” he said.
The five years it took to achieve the settlement have been “very adversarial,” Mr. Woolley said. He says the province has not owned up to the damage caused by the way the situation was handled. “They did not apologize, and they should apologize.”
