Petition calls for end to Short Hills barricade
Indigenous hunters are calling on police to stop what they describe as illegal barricades at Short Hills Provincial Park, after facing protesters earlier this month as the annual deer hunt began.
An online petition launched last week by the Supporters of Haudenosaunee Right to Hunt had garnered more than 1,365 signatures as of Saturday — insisting that police move protesters to the north side of Pelham Road away from the parking lot, so they will no longer be able to stop vehicles entering and exiting the area.
In its petition — available at www.change.org/p/honour-the -treaties-stop-the-barricade-at -short-hills — the group alleges that while the hunters are being delayed by protesters they’re subjected to harassment and racism.
“During this time, children and their family/community members are subjected to being called ‘murderers, savages, killers, criminals, disgusting,’” the petition says.
The organization says it recognizes the protesters’ right to freedom of assembly and freedom of expression, but “it is improper for police personnel to support antihunt protester actions by allowing this barricade and forcing the hunters and their family members to be subjected to this racist settler-harassment.”
The group also calls the actions of the protesters “an act of colonial violence and racism under the United Nations international convention on the elimination of all forms of racial discrimination.”
Animal rights activist Liz White denies the allegation.
“The minute it becomes a First Nations hunt, it attaches all kinds of accusations of racism,” she says.
White, an Animal Alliance of Canada board member, says protesters — many of whom are neighbouring residents — are permitted to delay the arrival and departure of hunters’ vehicles for about five minutes, giving them an opportunity “to document everything.”
“We can’t get a straight answer out of anyone about what’s going on, so we have to be there to document what’s exactly happening,” she says.
She says the protesters — they numbered more than 20 on each of the first two days of the sixth annual hunt — record the number and size of trucks going into the park, as well as the number of hunters in each of the trucks, while also jotting down the licence plate of each vehicle.
“On the way in and out, we document un-encased bows … and we document how many deer are taken,” she says.
In a media release, Supporters of Haudenosaunee Right to Hunt co-founder Celeste Smith calls the
barricade a violation of Indigenous rights.
“Police have a legal obligation to protect our inherent and treaty rights,” she says.
White says she understands and respects treaty rights.
However, she says, the treaty doesn’t say: “If you’re going to hunt in a provincial park you’re allowed to do whatever you want in that park.”
Aside from the hunting, White says protesters are also concerned about the damage to the park as a result of using motorized vehicles, especially after recent heavy rainfalls.
“Nobody else would ever be allowed to take their vehicle into the park. Nobody else would be allowed to take an ATV into the park, a dirt bike — anything,” she says.
“There’s huge damage that occurs there.”
White says there should be a “talked-through agreement, not this battle that we’re having,” to allow some parts of the province to be free of hunting.
In those locations — and she argues Short Hills ought to be one of them — people should “just leave the animals alone and see what evolves.”
“We’re in a world that is fundamentally changing in terms of global warming … It would be better for us from an ecological point of view to understand how a geographic area evolves unfettered by hunting.”
The hunt continues Nov. 17, 18, 29 and 30.
In response to the protests, the Supporters of Haudenosaunee Right to Hunt have organized a series of free educational workshops at the hunt which focus on Indigenous culture as well as challenges such as racism and colonialism.