‘Abusive’ behaviour at hunt protest

RE: PETITION CALLS FOR END TO SHORT HILLS BARRICADE, NOV. 11

This article describing behaviour by police and pickets at the Short Hills Provincial Park exit/entrance during the Haudenosaunee bow and arrow deer hunt reveals abusive behaviour.

The article describes the police practice of holding vehicles for a period while protesters act in ways that I feel put a stain on our community standards of respect and peace.

Police hold the vehicle in place just outside the park making it possible for hateful language and taunts to happen.

Perhaps police have a protocol to let “pickets” be seen and heard during labour disputes. But a treaty right is at play.

Police should protect rights of the Haudenosaunee hunters. Their hunting is a treaty right and that right was further enhanced and affirmed in 1982 with the Canadian Constitution Act. Surely this most basic of rights in Canada is being pilloried by the behaviour at the park gates.

Do the landowners among the protesters know the security of their property rights in the Niagara peninsula come directly from treaties and relations established between the European empires and the Indigenous peoples?

The royal proclamation of 1763 established that only the Crown, or government, could buy land from Indigenous groups. The proclamation established a rights-based tenure for all land holdings. That security of title enjoyed by landowners around the park is a similar right as that of the collective rights of Indigenous peoples arising out of treaties.

Surely the preeminence of treaties and the Canadian Constitution Act of 1982 should require police to act in a way that affords peace; not abuse. Change the police methods.

Don Alexander

St. Catharines