The federal Liberals' inaction on the environment might just be the saviour Dalton McGuinty is hoping for. If global warming can eliminate winter entirely, nobody will notice that the native occupation in Caledonia, which McGuinty said must not continue through the winter has, er, continued through the winter.
Mike thinks the federal government should be playing a bigger role; however, it seems likely from my research that the true problem is that Six Nations does not have any legal claim at all to the land in question. It's hard for the federal government to negotiate from a position of right with a group that is getting away with all kinds of criminal activity. Unlike McGuinty's government, our current federal leadership has some kind of spine and some kind of moral compass; they're not about to have land extorted from them. That being the case, the stalemate will likely continue unless forceful measures are used.
If the spring offensive does come in Caledonia, I think we will see McGuinty finally begin to pay an electoral price for his weakness; and public opinion will begin to harden against the natives. My hunch is that the occupation has achieved all it can do for the Six Nations and that everyone's interests, including theirs, would be best served at this point by withdrawal from the land.
