Message to Ontario Court of Appeals Justices

Sept. 10, 2006

Dear Mr. Brown:

Our names are xxxxx and xxxxx xxxxx and we reside at xx xxxx Street in Caledonia.  We have lived her for about 3 years now.  Until this occupation began, we really loved this quaint and quiet community and saw it as a place that we would probably call home forever, whether it be in this house or another in Caledonia.  We have no children yet, but thought the fact that there was a Catholic school situated directly behind our home would be an added bonus to living where we do when we did have children.

Let me tell you about how this occupation has affected our lives.

Over the last six months we have grown to the point of not wanting to live here at all anymore.  No one not living here could understand fully what it feels like to be jailed in your own community and home.  This occupation has had us up many long nights for various reasons.  As I mentioned, we live with our backyard attached to the side of Notre Dame school property.  We only have a chain-link fence behind our backyard and can see anything that happens back there.  Back on April 20th, 2006 - the day everything took a turn for the worse - I had been just leaving to go to work that morning around 8:15 am and didn't even know what was going on (as the police never warned everyone to stay home once it went bad).  There were helicopters flying overhead and you couldn't even drive down Argyle Street to leave town - which is where I was heading.

I turned right onto Argyle (heading South) from Braemar right into a convoy of police that were retreating away from the now very angry natives.  I could not go anywhere I was stuck there in my car in the middle of the road and didn't even know what was going on, just that it was very bad.  I called my boss at work and said I didn't know when I would get there, if at all and was in tears on the phone because I was afraid.  Over the next few minutes I witnessed a fire being started on the road and lots of angry natives cursing and yelling at residents that were just trying to go around Caledonia to go to work.

It took me 2 hours to get to work in Hamilton that morning - usually a 30 minute drive.  Once I was at work I worried that my house was going to possibly be burned down as all I could do was listen to the radio and listen to my town being terrorized.  All of my windows were open at home and my beloved 8 year old dog was inside with the black thick smoke and fumes outside possibly coming in.  Even though my husband didn't want me to return home, I took all the backroads and left work to come home to make sure everything was okay because I was so distraught.  That evening I went and stayed in Hamilton with my parents as my husband guarded our home.

Then, there were numerous evenings in which townspeople rallied at the barricade and residents along with natives spilled out into the streets at all hours of the night.  We have slept with 3 baseball bats beside our bed since April 20th.  We have had OPP on our street at all times now since August and we are always afraid to go away even for a weekend as we never know when things will escalate again (as happened when we went to Algonquin Park in August).

I spent that week trying to find out what was happening at home while messages were left on our answering machine at home asking us what was going on near our house by concerned friends.  Everyone could see what was happening on the news.  We almost drove 5 hours home just to make sure we could gather things if we needed to leave or protect our home.  We have had police in tactical riot gear parked on the grass behind our home with shields and other army-type weapons and combat clothes on the evening of June 9th when the natives assaulted the CH cameramen and swarmed an elderly couples vehicle and caused the man to have a heart attack. We watched a fight occur right behind our home again in the parking lot and on Braemar Street.

I will never forget standing in my bedroom at the back of my house with the helicopters shining their lights in all of our backyards while watching police move about in the dark and having townspeople swarming a police van that tried to arrest a citizen.  I was up until at least 3 am when I had to be in Hamilton by 8 am that following morning - I cried that night. I have gotten up many nights if I hear any noise in the lot behind our home and have also heard gunshots many times.   I feel more and more stressed everyday wondering when this is all going to turn much worse than it already is.  I know it will, it is just a matter of time.  I am a very reserved quiet person and even I am at the end of my rope as I feel like we are being raped by the government and inprisoned in our homes since no one will ever buy it now.

They would have to check in with the police in order to even drive down my street.  I don't feel safe with having the OPP there - it just reminds me why they are there in the first place and that if something did go wrong it is just a smokescreen since they won't do anything anyways. We also spent several nights in the dark when the natives decided to burn down our transformer and with being so close the the DCE we had no power for the longest out of all of the area.  We were then locked out of our house because we only had our garage door opener with us when we were out and it stopped working when the power went out.  We threw out all of our food (a few hundred dollars worth) and spent two cold nights in the dark as the temperatures were still low then (Victoria Day 2006). We had to break into our own home that day.  This sent me over the edge, as I feel like we are good citizens who have never caused problems for anyone, and they were doing this to us.   This is only a small amount of what has been daily occurences in Caledonia over the last few months.

I am anxious, depressed, angry and sad about it and I want to leave Caledonia and would do so in a second if I could.  I feel like we are in a horror movie as we sit here with the anticipation rising just waiting for that scarry part in the movie where most people cover their eyes, only we can't.

Sincerely,