Caledonia • mackaycartoons

Thursday September 6, 2017

September 6, 2017 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday September 6, 2017

Blockade down in Caledonia

An Indigenous barricade that blocked a main thoroughfare in Caledonia for close to a month has been dismantled.

July 31, 2013

Ontario Provincial Police say they asked demonstrators to leave the Highway 6 bypass Monday night.

“Once we responded, they eventually dispersed … on their own,” OPP spokesperson Const. Rodney LeClair said Tuesday.

The protesters had moved their roadblock from its original location at Argyle Street South to the Highway 6 bypass earlier Monday.

LeClair said police responded that evening because a “group was gathering” and using tires and trees to block a stretch of the bypass, which runs between Greens Road and Argyle Street South.

No one was arrested or injured, he said.

May 8, 2006

The OPP reopened Hwy. 6 Tuesday afternoon after the Ministry of Transportation’s maintenance contractor cleared the road.

LeClair said he hadn’t been told if demonstrators were still occupying the area around the bypass Tuesday.

“We’re remaining in the area just to preserve the peace like we’ve said from the onset, just maintain public safety,” he said.

Protesters who support the Six Nations hereditary government, known as the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, set up the barricade on Argyle Street South — Caledonia’s major thoroughfare — Aug. 10.

April 23, 2006

This spot — just south of town at the entrance of the former Douglas Creek Estates — is where a larger, more intense blockade and standoff took place in 2006 over land claims.

Indigenous people have renamed the site Kanonhstaton, “the protected place.”

This time around, demonstrators have said they were protesting the Ontario government’s transfer of a 154-hectare property known as the Burtch lands to the Six Nations Elected Band Council instead of the confederacy.

The return of the land, the former site of a correctional facility, was negotiated in exchange for the earlier barricade coming down more than 10 years ago.

April 21, 2006

On Monday, demonstrators issued a statement noting they had moved the barricade to the bypass “to unify the people of Six Nations and relieve pressure on our people and the residents of Caledonia.”

They erected a barricade on the bypass to “apply pressure on Canada to return to the negotiation table,” the statement reads.

It’s not clear what led the demonstrators to dismantle their barricade altogether or whether any issues were ironed out.

Protesters did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday. (Source: Hamilton Spectator)

Wednesday, July 31, 2013

July 31, 2013 by Graeme MacKay

Wednesday, July 31, 2013

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Native burger shack re-opens despite closure order

CALEDONIA Public health officials are contemplating further legal action after a burger shack on the community’s outskirts reopened Sunday, serving hundreds of customers.

An employee at the neighbouring One Stop Smoke Shop on Highway 6 said the eatery sold out of burgers, fries and other grub during a traditional dance event.

“We had over 400 people here,” said the worker, who would only identify himself as Jum. “The cops didn’t give us any trouble.”

The Haldimand-Norfolk Health Unit ordered the one-room restaurant to close July 12, after finding it lacked running water and a consistent power source. It also failed to contain a proper hand-washing station for employees.

When the little shack refused to comply, public health officials took the issue to court. Last Monday, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice issued a similar order to shut the burger shack down, but by that point it had already stopped serving food.

The restaurant bucked the court order this past weekend when it reopened for Six Nations’ annual pow-wow. But since an injunction has yet to be issued, OPP officers at Sunday’s event lacked the authority to stop it.

“Our job is public safety — to preserve the peace,” said Constable Mark Foster. “We’re better sometimes to step back, observe and then follow up later as we did with other incidents in the Caledonia area.”

Both the burger shack and smoke shop were built on the old portion of the highway at Argyle Street South — an area that is the subject of an unresolved land claim filed with the federal government. (Source: The Hamilton Spectator)

Thursday, January 31, 2013

January 31, 2013 by Graeme MacKay

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday, January 31, 2013

Six Nations chief won’t wear same medal as activist McHale

Six Nations Chief Bill Montour is returning his Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal to Governor General David Johnston after one was awarded to controversial Caledonia figure Gary McHale.

“I’m packing it up as we speak,” Montour said Tuesday. “I’m sending mine back because I don’t want to have a medal, carrying the same medal (as McHale) … This is recognition of what you have done to this point in your life, and I was quite happy and pleased to take it. After this has come about, I don’t want it.”

McHale, head of a group that stages contentious rallies and marches near a former Caledonia housing site occupied by Six Nations members since 2006, is to receive the medal Feb. 18 in Toronto. His rallies have brought out natives and their supporters, as well as the Ontario Provincial Police, who have to separate the two sides.

McHale was recommended for the award by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. Non-profit groups were invited to nominate people for the 60,000 medals being handed out.

Natives say they occupied Douglas Creek Estates because it was built on unsurrendered land, a claim the federal government denies. McHale’s Canadian Advocates for Charter Equality (CANACE) accuses the OPP of practising two-tier policing and treating natives and non-natives differently. (Source: Hamilton Spectator)

FEEDBACK

Letter to the Editor:

MacKay,

Normally I simply ignore your puerile offerings but today I’ll tell you what I think. Not only are you a leftist hack, but you have no talent. You are never funny nor clever in your attempt at satire. Your drawings are pathetically inept and devoid of artistic skill; a waste of editorial space. You should thank your lucky stars that people like Gary McHale are out there putting everything on the line to preserve democracy and protect your cowardly backside.

Most sincerely,

David Strutt, Cartoonist

* * * * * * *I recognize that cartoonist Graeme Mackay’s job appears to be to sit safely in his office/home and be cynical of the doers in society. Hey, it is the very freedoms that we have worked so hard for in the past seven years that ensures Mackay can continue making a living. As SunTV has recently found out, the policing policies in Caledonia can quickly be used in Toronto to target reporters who are peacefully doing their jobs instead of dealing with angry protesters.

Imagine a day when Mackay’s cartoons caused certain groups to be upset and as a result the police would target Mackay in order to keep the peace throughout the area. Would Mackay be so quick to belittle the hard work of those who fight to ensure all Canadians have the same rights and freedoms?

If fact, MacKay’s cartoon is just another reason why so few have the courage to step forward and take a stand to ensure equality within our country. Often throughout history, those who enjoy the benefits of freedom rarely understand the cost nor appreciate those who take up the struggle. We continue to fight for Mackay’s right to publish cartoons that belittle our efforts ” whether or not he finds the cause worthy.

Gary McHale, Executive Director of CANACE, Binbrook

* * * * * * *I am a fan of editorial cartooning but I had to wince when I saw your Jan. 31 cartoon depicting Queen’s Jubilee medals being tossed willy-nilly to clowns and comic animals. Most of your readers will see this as a reference to the news that Caledonia activist Gary McHale has been awarded the medal. The list of puerile insults and indignities this magnificent man has stoically endured over many years beggars belief. If it was your cartoonist’s intention to add to this list he has succeeded.

Stuart Laughton, Burlington

* * * * * * *I have always admired political cartoons for the way they can so cleverly express an opinion. But that is all they are – an opinion and as such are often wrong. Your cartoon in the Hamilton Spectator of January 31 about the Queen’s Jubilee Medal being awarded to Gary McHale may have cleverly expressed your opinion but I assure you, you could not have been more mistaken.

From my perspective, up until a year and a half ago, Gary McHale was just some poor guy who kept getting arrested in Caledonia while protesting something that was none of his business. I had no reason to believe otherwise because that is what The Spectator stories said. Besides, I have always trusted the police to do what is right and I generally sympathized with the natives who only wanted to settle grievances even though I abhorred their violent actions at the Douglas Creek Estates. In any case my interests lay elsewhere, in stories related to the Middle East and to radical Islam and I had no time to take more of an interest in Caledonia

But then I learned that Islamist groups were very much part of what was going on in Caledonia. They were agitators who took part in the native protests and even flew Palestinian flags over the violently seized DCE. The unionists, the Marxists and the anarchists were there too, stirring up the already volatile group of natives who believed that their grievances gave them the right to behave criminally. Yet the police never arrested any of the non-native agitators, only Gary McHale. My interest in Caledonia changed.

For the past year and a half Mr. Mackay, I have gotten to know Gary McHale and many of the others who support him. I have attended several of his rallies at the DCE and to this day I shake my head in disbelief at what I have witnessed. This was not in the former Soviet Union. Nor was it in some despotic Middle Eastern country. This was in Canada.

Even if I was of the opinion that natives who broke the law should not be arrested (which I am not), why were the Islamists, anarchists and Marxists who reject our democratic values and who were behaving provocatively not arrested for breach of the peace? On the contrary, at each rally only Gary McHale and his supporters were summarily handcuffed, thrown into police wagons like dangerous criminals and subjected to humiliating periods in custody.

Gary McHale has never once expressed any opposition to native claims and while he opposes the violence that occurred at DCE, he has never disparaged natives, their culture or their rights. Yet I have witnessed anarchists and Marxists yelling vulgar insults at him and calling him a racist when nothing could be further from the truth. I assure you, if Gary McHale had expressed racist sentiments, I would not be writing this letter.

Do you understand, Mr. Mackay, exactly what has happened in Caledonia? Have you been to even a single demonstration to witness the biased and discriminatory actions of the police? Do you even remotely appreciate that what Gary McHale is protesting is the absence of the rule of law? Does it bother you, even a little, that anti-democracy groups have succeeded in undermining our political and legal institutions and have thus managed to chip away at our freedoms?

Gary McHale does. That is what he has been fighting. That is why he deserves a medal.

It is a shame that because of your bias against Mr. McHale, you managed in one brief, self-righteous moment to mock every other recipient of the Queen’s Jubilee Medal, past and present. You got it wrong, Mr. Mackay, because the real circus is in Caledonia where anarchists wear animal costumes and t-shirts emblazoned with expressions like “Fuck law and order”; where natives and their supporters are allowed to stand around holding weapons while Gary McHale is handcuffed and arrested for walking on a public road; where members of unions are permitted to behave disrespectfully and disruptively in courtrooms and receive no reprimand; where the police have wasted millions in taxpayer dollars while not doing what they have sworn to do – uphold the law; where the politicians have allowed this travesty to occur and where the liberal media helps pave the way for others like it.

Now that you know, perhaps you can draw a really, really clever cartoon.

S. Scheffer, Burlington

* * * * * * *My Response to the above letter…

Hi, Steven

I appreciate your feedback.

Timing aside, what leads you to think Gary McHale is the subject of the cartoon? Did you actually see Mr. McHale depicted in the cartoon? None of the characters bear any resemblance. Do you think Gary McHale is the only person who has stirred up any controversy following nomination to a Queen’s Jubilee Medal?

There is nothing in that cartoon to indicate my position on the situation in Caledonia. To understand my evolving observation on the situation there for the past 6+ years is a simple google search away if you really care to find the answer to some of the questions you ask. I could ask you, the same question as to whether you understand exactly what has happened in Caledonia, but I won’t, because in my opinion there is no right answer.

I think you know what I’m stating in the cartoon, but are instead using it as a convenient sounding board to advance an argument that everyone realizes is present and will only lead to more bloodied noses, blocked roads, and tax dollars spent on increased policing.

So for the record, the cartoon you’re writing about is a simple commentary on the farce that has beset a noble idea to recognize Canadians who have made significant contributions to this country. The majority are well deserved people who’ve earned their medals quietly and respectfully, while others have simply received them for having a title, or holding a certain office, or because they’re a friend of someone charged with giving out those awards. The final category that has made a farce of the medal are individuals who, while possessing tremendous merit in the eyes of their supporters, are so widely divisive it makes the award very questionable. These factors, not my cartoon, have brought mockery to this medal.

Sincerely,

Graeme MacKay, Editorial Cartoonist The Hamilton Spectator Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

February 27, 2007

February 27, 2007 by Graeme MacKay

It all began one year ago when native protesters from the Six Nations began a demonstration to raise awareness about a land claim in the small town of Caledonia, Ontario, about a 30 minute drive south of Hamilton.

At the centre of the dispute was a 40 hectare plot of land which was to be developed into a residential subdivision. This was a fragment of a much larger chunk of land known as the ‘Haldimand Tract’ which was granted to the Six Nations by the British crown back in the 1700’s. It is argued that the Six Nations surrendered the land back to the crown in 1841. 150 or so years later the Canadian federal government sold the land to Henco Industries Ltd., the developer intending to build houses on the property.

In June of 2006, the Province of Ontario purchased land from Henco. At present the natives continue to occupy the land.

There’s a lot of stuff that happened in between now and a year ago but there you get the condensed story in a nutshell. The above cartoons illustrate some of the highlights of the Caledonia standoff, a story I wish would go away soon, but will probably keep going for years to come.

FEEDBACK

I think perhaps you should go and meet the Confederacy representatives and explore their view of the land dispute. Your cartoons have a definite anti-native bias that is quite unsettling and appears to lack awareness or respect for their culture, their position, and their 200 year long and arduous trail just to get the federal government to the table.

If a cartoonist only reflects the biased information that already exists in the media, he only presents stale stereotypes such as these.

Saga (March 6, 2007)

October 21, 2006

October 21, 2006 by Graeme MacKay

It seems as though my Caledonia March for Freedom cartoon has stirred up a bit of anger among some folks judging by the feedback and blog reaction it’s getting. (Note some of the posted comments on my own blog in this entry.) Today’s Spectator prints a letter to the editor related to the cartoon:

This is a complaint about the editorial cartoon in the front section of The Hamilton Spectator. It features Gary McHale leading the March For Freedom in Caledonia. For a newspaper to poke fun at someone’s weight, creed or colour is disgraceful and tacky. The Spectator should hang its head in shame.

We live in Stoney Creek and attended the protest on Sunday in Caledonia. We saw a lot of residents from Caledonia and only three little incidents at the police barricade. Those incidents were nothing like those at the speeches when a pickup truck full of natives sped through the site yelling racial remarks at the non-natives.

We also witnessed non-natives not being allowed past the police barricade, but natives were free to walk up the street, pass the police barricades, get their coffee at Tim Hortons, and return to the Douglas Creek Estates.

My wife asked an OPP officer why this was happening. He said he didn’t know.

If people can’t see there is a two-tier justice system in Caledonia, they are blind.

Gary Thompson-Stoney Creek

The writer best articulates a common complaint among all the feedback I’ve received and read — that 1) I was unfair to depict Gary McHale and the protesters in the way I did, and 2) that clearly, the law is being enforced by the O.P.P. on non-natives, whereas natives seem to be free to do whatever they want.

Regarding point 2, I think it’s a very legitimate complaint by the protesters, and I’ve drawn on that sentiment in the past. Here’s another concerning the O.P.P.

As for my depiction of the protesters and Gary McHale, well, yeah it was ad hominum in its nature, but frankly, that’s what we cartoonists often do when we approach issues. An Editorial cartoon is designed to generate laughter from half of an audience while creating howls of scorn and outrage from the other. It’s our little box of anarchy on an otherwise serious, and pontifical editorial page. Don’t expect editorial cartoonists to be fair. We’re there to entertain, to make cheap shots, to illustrate popular sentiment, and to make readers think. Peruse my archives and you’ll find many many cartoons which you may find funny, whereas others will take great offence.

And finally, editorial cartoonists work on our own. We aren’t part of any corporate agenda. We don’t draw whatever the publisher or editor wants us to draw — we get our cartoons spiked if they ever think we’ve crossed the boundary into bad taste or libel, but we are our own masters. On Caledonia, I comment on whatever big events are added to the chronology of this standoff, whether, as shown above, it’s an angry mob of non-natives marching like the 7th U.S. Calvary being led by General Custer, or if its a goofball native father teaching his kid how to construct a roadblock. I’ve done several other cartoons poking the natives, who often voice the loudest complaints when a little bit of humor is made at their expense. Oh well.