[Gary] McHale was not as advertised – nothing like it — and the reason he seems so foreign, even odd, is because he’s that rarest of modern Canadian creatures – a man who acts on principle, lives and breathes it in fact.
In our collective defense, there are so few of these folks around it’s little wonder we’re suspicious of them. The McHales gave up so much in what might be called, though it’s a bit of a stretch, the fight for a free Caledonia – financial security, the trappings of an ordinarily comfortable, if not affluent, life – in exchange for permanent poverty, vilification by the state and a generally sleepy press, and arrest and harassment by the [Ontario Provincial Police].
I agree with veteran reporter Christie Blatchford, quoted above.
My fellow Canadians tend to be a rather timid bunch.
We’re more prone to writing angry letters to the editor than taking to the streets (unless it’s to riot after a hockey victory).
We tend to care more about the lottery than liberty, and free coffees than freedom.
That’s why, as Blatchford noted, Gary McHale seems at once so very Canadian and yet so… foreign.
The “political activists” we do have up here tend to be well-paid professional protesters and office-bound do-gooders, left-wingers all.
Despite his admiration for their supposed hero Martin Luther King, Jr., however, McHale is abhorred by those very leftists.
Maybe his front-line, high-risk protests shame them a little.
But mostly, Gary McHale has quietly yet stubbornly dared to question what he calls “race-based policing” — the kid-glove treatment Canadian Indian protesters (some would call them terrorists)receive when they violently attack non-Native persons and their property.
Especially as he witnessed it first hand, in a place called Caledonia.
If you don’t watch any other video today, please watch this one:
Folks from the U.S., Israel, and European countries have asked me if what they’ve heard about Caledonia can possibly be true:
“How could such things go on in Canada, of all places, in the 21st century?”
Sadly, it’s all true, and possibly worse than they know…
On February 28, 2006, a group of Native protestors from the Six Nations occupied the Douglas Creek Estates housing development in the small community of Caledonia, Ontario. Worried about the bad press they could receive if they forcibly removed and charged the illegal protestors—who would be joined, over the next weeks and months, by armed Mohawk Warriors, union organizers, pro-Palestinian activists, and drug- and people-smugglers from across the continent—the police failed to act on several court orders to remove them.
By the time they did make their move two months later, the occupiers’ numbers and resolve had increased to such an extent that they were able to fight off the police, in the process injuring three officers. From that point on, chaos came to Caledonia, with the highway dug up, hydro towers cut down, fires set on private property, a bridge burnt down, the power station firebombed, objects hurled onto a road from an overpass, numerous death threats issued, police officers assaulted and held hostage, and residents and reporters, including an elderly white couple and an 86-year-old war veteran, harassed, swarmed, and beaten up (…)
The [Ontario provincial] McGuinty government tried to buy peace by purchasing Douglas Creek Estates and authorizing the violent protestors to live there for free (at taxpayers’ expense), but the mayhem merely escalated as protestors fought amongst themselves and with the community.
One homeowner was attacked by an Indian and left permanently brain damaged.
The Indian received only two years in prison. Because he’s an Indian.
Gary McHale and other counterprotesters were arrested for… carrying Canadian flags while walking on a public road.
Oh, and then there’s this:
Christie Blatchford’s book about this disgraceful state of affairs, Helpless, finally brought it to the public eye.
Most mainstream media ignored this near-decade of vicious violence and flagrant lawbreaking, all because the perpetrators were natives and the victims were overwhelmingly white.
Now Gary McHale himself has released a book about his travails in Caledonia.
Victory in the No-Go Zone is more than just one man’s recollections about a shameful time in some foreign country’s history.
All conservatives and libertarians, especially those who turn up their noses at “direct action” and street level protests, should read this book.
Calling McHale “Michael Moore’s good twin,” reviewer Janice Fiamengo writes:
McHale gave himself body and soul to the cause: he lived and breathed Caledonia for the next seven years, enduring significant hardship as a result. He was arrested nine times, was held in jail overnight without charge, had his named smeared repeatedly in the mainstream media, was harassed and beaten by Native protesters, lost his life savings, had to defend himself against a 7.1 million dollar lawsuit launched against him by the OPP, was charged with a made-up crime in order to keep him out of Caledonia, and experienced on a daily basis the world-turned-upside-down reality of a politically correct organization in which race determined who could commit crime with impunity and whose suffering was of no account. (…)
His character as a man of God, and as someone who has thought through his own principles and convictions and believes in himself whatever the whole world tells him, colours every page and makes his book an inspiring document of perseverance and integrity.
It should be read by all concerned Canadians, not only as a civic duty but also as a warning and a preparation for what we may all face in the future.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member