RED HILL VALLEY - SUMMER 2003 - MEDIA

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CONTENTS:

Police push peaceful Red Hill resolution

 By Steve Buist
The Hamilton Spectator, Thursday, September 18, 2003

Hamilton police are taking a three Ws approach to the ongoing occupation of the Red Hill Creek valley by a small group of mostly-native protesters: watching, waiting and wishing for a peaceful resolution to the dispute.

"We're the peacekeepers," said Superintendent Ken Leendertse of the police service's east end division. "We're not a party to this."

For more than five weeks, a small group of people have been camping in the valley near Greenhill Avenue in an effort to block construction of the controversial Red Hill Creek Expressway.

The natives in the group say they represent the Haudenosaunee, those who support the traditional hereditary chiefs of the Iroquois Confederacy of Six Nations, as opposed to the elected band council of Six Nations.

The group has built a traditional roundhouse and is currently constructing a longhouse at the campsite.

Last week, the city of Hamilton won a court injunction that prevents any interference with construction of the expressway and any trespassing at Greenhill Ave.

But since then, the city has elected not to enforce the injunction in favour of continuing negotiations with a four-person team set up by the Confederacy chiefs to deal with a number of Red Hill issues.

Leendertse said he's encouraged that the dialogue between the two sides is ongoing.

"We see progress every day," he said. "There can be a win-win situation for the parties involved in this. We've done a lot of work building relationships so that the focus is where it should be, and that's on the city and the people of the roundhouse."

To date, Hamilton police have managed to balance the twin challenges of keeping the peace and enforcing the law since the occupation of the Greenhill Avenue site began in early August.

"We have zero tolerance on any criminal activity," said Leendertse, "but the police will not initiate a breach of the peace.

"The police respect the rights and freedoms of a lawful protest but will discourage unlawful conduct in ensuring and maintaining public safety.

"We're here to protect the people in the valley just as much as the workers who may eventually be going there."

Some of the leaders of the protest give high marks to the police for the sensitive and cautious approach they've taken so far.

"I have all the respect in the world for the Hamilton police," said protester Dave Heatley, who called police "very progressive."

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Traditional chiefs seek end to valley occupation

 Steve Buist and Peter Van Harten
The Hamilton Spectator, Wednesday, September 17, 2003

The city hopes the traditional chiefs of the Iroquois Confederacy will be able to convince a group of natives to end their occupation of a Red Hill Valley expressway construction site.

"There's dialogue going on and we are hopeful," says Hamilton Mayor Bob Wade.

The mayor said that although the natives camped out in the valley are ignoring a court injunction, the city is not rushing to have it enforced.

"We are not going to be aggressive as long as progress is being made."

The city is pinning its hopes on a four-person negotiating team set up by the Confederacy chiefs to deal with a number of Red Hill issues. A spokesperson for the team could not be reached yesterday.

Wade briefly outlined the situation to city councillors at a committee-of-the-whole meeting yesterday.

Chris Murray, the city project manager for the expressway, told councillors, "The actions that have unfolded in the last several weeks do not jeopardize that completion date (of 2007) but we would not want to see this matter unresolved."

The delays have resulted in $40,000 in extra costs for the construction company involved and although legal costs for the injunction have not been tallied, they are likely $200,000, Murray said.

The natives in the valley don't anticipate the occupation will turn violent.

"Why would we want to initiate something like that when everything here is peaceful?" asked Ganigiyostoh, a woman from Six Nations who has been at the campsite since early August.

She is part of a small group of people, mostly native, who have been camping in the valley near Greenhill Avenue in an effort to block construction of the controversial Red Hill Creek Expressway. Yesterday, about a dozen people continued building an approximately seven-metre by 13-metre traditional longhouse at the campsite.

The natives in the group say they represent the Haudenosaunee, those who support the traditional hereditary chiefs of the Iroquois Confederacy of Six Nations, as opposed to the elected band council of Six Nations.

The driving forces behind the campsite occupation appear to be Arnold General, a hereditary chief of the Onondaga Nation, and the late Norman Jacobs, a native activist as well as faithkeeper for the Onondaga Longhouse on Six Nations who passed away Aug. 31.

Both General and Jacobs had been appointed to the Haudenosaunee environmental task force, which deals with a number of issues including the Red Hill Valley.

Jacobs stayed active in the Red Hill Valley situation even after his struggle with cancer landed him in hospital.

"While he was sick, we still had contact with him every day," said Ganigiyostoh. "He was happy with what we were doing.

"We're carrying on his legacy.

"But we still have Arnie," she added.

General is away and could not be reached for comment.

Dave General, a member of the Six Nation's elected band council and Lands and Resources portfolio holder, said the likelihood of the protest turning violent appears to be small.

He also said that he's not aware of any larger, national-based organizations or militant native factions that are involved with the protest.

General added that the band council supports efforts by the Confederacy leadership to sit down and resolve the Red Hill issue with the city.

"It's one thing to have the flareup and draw attention to an issue," said General. "But ultimately you have to sit down and resolve it."

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City delays action on valley protest: Officials don't know who the mystery group is representing

By Peter Van Harten
The Hamilton Spectator, Tuesday, September 16, 2003

City officials struggled yesterday with how to react to a small group of native protesters defying a court injunction to abandon their occupation of the Red Hill Creek valley.

The anti-expressway protesters thumbed their noses at a Superior Court injunction barring anybody from trespassing on the construction site or interfering with contractors. And they are building a longhouse on the site as they dig in for a long wait.

Councillor Larry Di Ianni heads the city's expressway implementation committee.

He said council will discuss the occupation today, but it is probably "premature" for the city to ask that the court injunction be enforced by the sheriff's office and police.

The first step is to learn who the mostly native protesters speak for and how to deal with them.

"Part of the problem here is that people keep springing up from different directions and we don't know for sure who they really may be representing," Di Ianni said.

And that may not be simple. The Iroquois Confederacy -- the traditional Six Nations leadership -- says the protesters don't have their support. In fact, the chiefs say they don't know who is behind the group.

Expressway project manager Chris Murray says the city was surprised by the longhouse building activity at the camp on the weekend.

The city had thought it was on the verge of a deal with the traditional chiefs of the Iroquois Confederacy that would have seen the natives leave.

It had been thought that a native sacred fire built in a roundhouse at the encampment would be allowed to die down and be taken back to the Six Nations territory.

"Individuals are clearly not paying attention to the judge's direction and not listening to the direction of the Confederacy chiefs," he said.

Lawyer Paul Williams, a member of a four-person Confederacy Council team set up to negotiate with the city, said the team had "suggested" to protesters the sacred fire be moved to the Six Nations territory.

A Spectator story yesterday was in error when it indicated the Confederacy chiefs were "taking a stand" on the expressway and the valley, he said.

The Confederacy negotiating team was dealing with various Red Hill issues and the situation in the valley was affecting their efforts, he said.

"The situation is delicate and we are attempting to deal with it," Williams said. "I don't speak for the people in the valley."

Lou Frapporti, the lawyer hired by the city to deal with anti-expressway protests, said there are some procedural hurdles to be cleared before the city could have the injunction enforced. He met with city and police officials yesterday and "no precipitous" action was going to be taken, he said.

It was hoped negotiations with the Confederacy negotiating team would resolve the standoff in the valley.

"There is no desire to force an unnecessary confrontation," he said.

Don McLean, head of the Friends of Red Hill Valley, said the city had brought about the standoff by not dealing sooner with concerns of First Nations people about the expressway.

It was now pushing ahead to make the project a "done deal" before the municipal election but should hold off. He has no intention of defying the injunction and is advising community protesters not to break the law, he said. But the aboriginal protesters take the position the court has no jurisdiction over them, he said.

Di Ianni said the injunction was quite clear that the court ruling applied to everyone.

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Protesters deny court's authority over them

 By Steve Buist
The Hamilton Spectator, Hamilton Spectator, Tuesday, September 16, 2003

A narrow path leads into the Red Hill Creek Valley at the end of Greenhill Avenue, near Mount Albion Road, in Hamilton's east end.

There are no signs pointing to Ground Zero in the battle over the Red Hill Creek Expressway -- the spot where a small group of mostly native protesters has taken up residence to block construction of the highway.

As the path reaches the edge of the bush, it's hard to be sure you're heading in the right direction until the buzzing of a chainsaw breaks the silence. Soon after, there's the unmistakable aroma of wood smoke from a fire, then the path opens into the small campsite that consists of a roundhouse, a tent and a couple of tarps stretched above the ground.

It's noon and there are about a dozen people at the site, not counting the camera crew from Aboriginal Peoples Television Network that has just arrived to film a segment. It's this small mix of people, mostly native, that is holding a $200-million construction project at bay, despite a court injunction obtained by the city Friday.

While the expressway remains silent, there is some construction going on at the campsite. A couple of dozen trees were cut down Sunday as protesters began building a 20-foot by 40-foot traditional longhouse.

It's ironic, perhaps, that since the city won the right to continue construction of the expressway, the first trees sacrificed in the valley have been cut down by the protesters trying to stop the project.

The native protesters, who say they represent the Haudenosaunee, or the traditional chiefs of the Iroquois Confederacy, have spent the past five weeks camped in the Red Hill Valley.

As the city ponders whether it will begin enforcing the injunction, the protesters stressed repeatedly that they seek a peaceful resolution to the situation.

"We're a non-violent group here," said Ganigiyostoh, a woman from Six Nations who has been at the campsite since early August.

But despite their invitation to discuss the issue, the protesters make it clear that there is only one outcome that they will ultimately accept -- no expressway. It's also clear that the native protesters don't believe that the court injunction has any bearing on First Nations people.

What's not as clear is whether the native protest is part of a well-organized initiative or simply a loosely-knit group of like-minded people.

Representatives of the Haudenosaunee have distanced themselves from the native protesters.

Lawyer Paul Williams, who is representing the Confederacy in talks with Hamilton, said the protesters are having a negative effect on his attempts to negotiate with the city.

And one of the traditional chiefs of the Confederacy said yesterday that the protesters weren't formally sanctioned.

"They never asked," said Cayuga Chief Cleeve General of Ohsweken. "... That's why I have nothing to do with it."

The native protesters recognize that they may soon have to make some difficult choices if they face the possibility of being forcibly removed from the valley.

Ganigiyostoh was asked what decision she'll make if the police arrive to evict her.

"We'll cross that bridge when it comes."

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Protesters defy court

Dozens start on longhouse and block pathways at Greenhill encampment

 Meredith Macleod
The Hamilton Spectator, Monday, August 15, 2003

Some opponents of the Red Hill Creek expressway are digging in for a long, cold fight in their bid to hold off its construction.

Yesterday, dozens of people began work on a longhouse to shelter protesters at a Greenhill Avenue encampment, vowing they will not leave until the city backs off on its plan to build a $200-million highway through the valley.

By mid-afternoon, dirt paths into the site were being barricaded. One man carrying large branches to block off a path said that as of today, the camp will be considered closed. Supporters of the anti-expressway fight will gain access to the site "with permission," he said.

Natives and non-natives joined together to cut down trees and dig holes to build a longhouse, a traditional native lodging house. Women in high heels and gold jewellery worked alongside teens, senior citizens and young men.

"We're not leaving here," vowed Wilamina McGrimmond, of the Carrier Nation in British Columbia, and one of the leaders of the five-week native occupation of the Red Hill Valley. "We will stay all winter. We're going to live here, that's all there is to it."

She said protest organizers are calling and e-mailing native groups across the country for support.

"Nobody can be afraid to be arrested. We probably will all be arrested but more will take our place. We're not going to bend over for the city. Now is the time to take a stand."

All who gathered at the site on the weekend were defying a court order handed down Friday that grants the city an injunction on the protests which have blocked construction since Aug. 5.

The order, issued by Superior Court Justice Joseph Henderson, prohibits anyone from interfering with construction anywhere along the eight-kilometre route and specifically bans trespassing at the Greenhill site.

"I am surprised that there are people who are not willing to obey the law," said councillor Larry Di Ianni, chair of the city's expressway implementation committee.

"For them to go against the law in such a flagrant way is inviting the law to react and I can assure you the law will react," Di Ianni said.

He also said the Red Hill project creates "unique historical and cultural concerns" for native people and the city is willing to negotiate to address them. But Di Ianni added the court ruling applies to all citizens.

"To those individuals breaking the law, I would tell them to think again. This is not a good example they're setting for the community."

The longhouse will join a cluster of small camping shelters made out of logs, branches, clear plastic and tarps. A roundhouse protects a sacred fire that burns constantly.

Native leaders at the Greenhill site said a new group called People of The Valley had formed out of an alliance between the Haudenosaunee (or Iroquois Confederacy), and two other anti-expressway groups -- Friends of the Red Hill Valley and Showstoppers.

But representatives of both Friends of the valley and Showstoppers said no such alliance has been formed.

Both groups said they will respect the court injunction.

"We have not amalgamated with anybody. I'm not sure what is happening here," said Don McLean, chair of Friends of the Red Hill Valley.

"There may be members of our group there but there is no one on the site with the authority to speak for Friends of the Red Hill Valley."

McLean said it would be a "major shift" for his group to support an occupation of Red Hill lands. Instead, the group will continue to fight the expressway in the courts and at city hall, he said.

But formal alliance or not, co-operation between non-native and native activists was clear as the longhouse slowly took shape.

Protester David Heatley said he is excited that natives and non-natives have joined together.

"This is what we should have been doing from the beginning. We should have all been pulling from one end of the rope rather than pulling in different directions."

When asked how long the occupation could last, Heatley answered: "Spring, summer, fall."

"Every day, people come by who we haven't seen before to help us and to ask us if we're staying."

Kevin MacKay, a Hamilton anthropologist and eight-year veteran of the Red Hill fight, took his turns with a manual post-hole digger yesterday. He said the city is underestimating the strength of resolve among protesters and the legitimacy of native claims to the land.

"They are writing off the grassroots support as fringe. Joining the Haudenosaunee is just the catalyst we needed. Everyone believes this valley would be in no better hands."

And the court injunction is far from a death blow, he said.

"The beauty about peoples' movements is that the authorities can close every door and block every path and think they have you on the ropes. But it just makes you stronger."

Many labouring protesters said they are invigorated by the new resolve between natives and non-natives to work together.

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Ruling gives green light to Hamilton expressway

Judge clears way for $3.4-million overpass despite protests by environmental groups

 Globe and Mail, September 15, 2003
By KEN KILPATRICK Special to The Globe and Mail

HAMILTON, Ont. -- Hamilton has won Round One in its fight with environmental activists over construction of the controversial Red Hill Creek Expressway.

In a lengthy written ruling released Friday, Mr. Justice J.R. Henderson of Ontario Superior Court allowed construction of a $3.4-million overpass to begin.

A coalition of environmental groups opposed to the four-lane highway formed a human blockade at the east-end site early last month, stopping workers for Dufferin Construction of Oakville.

In response, the city applied for an injunction to restrain protesters from obstructing construction.

Judge Henderson said there is a strong case to show that protesters were engaging in civil disobedience.

He also wrote that they may be guilty of nuisance and inducing breach of contract, as well as the criminal offence of intimidation.

The judge disagreed with the environmental groups' argument that the city was not a proper steward for the Red Hill Valley. "The plaintiff [the City of Hamilton] is the owner of the property and . . . has chosen to pursue a certain direction for the valley. The plaintiff is controlled by duly elected politicians who have collectively chosen to pursue this direction. If the defendants do not like the stewardship of the plaintiff, they have a political issue, not a legal issue."

Judge Henderson said the defendants who appeared in court were all sincere, honest and responsible individuals but that they may have acted unlawfully.

Chris Murray, director of the Red Hill Valley project for Hamilton, said he was pleased with the decision and that he and Dufferin Construction officials would meet today to find out how quickly they can mobilize. "The sooner we can put up fencing and secure the site, the better."

Don McLean, chairman of Friends of Red Hill Valley, said he was disappointed but not surprised.

He said his group will now focus its efforts on getting antiexpressway candidates elected in the Nov. 10 municipal elections.

The group hopes that David Christopherson, a former NDP representative in the Ontario legislature, will be elected Hamilton's mayor. Mayor Bob Wade is not seeking re-election, although Stoney Creek Councillor Larry Di Ianni, who chairs the expressway implementation committee, is also running for the top municipal job.

Mr. McLean said a few Six Nations members are still at the construction site. They have built a longhouse and lit an eternal fire inside it.

The city has been in negotiations with natives regarding an Indian burial site in the valley and the discovery of settlement areas, including a major one at the top of the Niagara Escarpment, directly in line with the expressway.

Mr. Murray said Friday he remains hopeful for a solution.

The four-lane, eight-kilometre highway has been a flashpoint between politicians and environmental groups since planning began in the late 1970s. In 1990, the NDP government cancelled its funding, even though two overpasses had been constructed. Funding was later reinstated.

The highway will run from Dartnell Road to the Queen Elizabeth Way and will be a continuation of the Lincoln Alexander Expressway.

Expectations are that at least 6,000 trucks will use the highway daily because it cuts about 12 kilometres off the route over the Burlington Bay Skyway Bridge.

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Judge blocks anti-expressway picketing:

Red Hill Valley protesters risk being jailed for 'breaking the law' if court order ignored

Eric McGuinness
The Hamilton Spectator, Saturday, September 13, 2003

Anyone who tries to block construction of the Red Hill Creek Expressway is now violating a court order and risks being jailed.

Superior Court Justice Joseph Henderson has granted the City of Hamilton an injunction against anti-expressway picketing that has blocked work on a bridge at Greenhill Avenue since Aug. 5. Lawyer Lou Frapporti, representing the city, says the order prohibits anyone from interfering with construction anywhere along the eight-kilometre route and specifically bans trespassing at the Greenhill site where well-travelled trails wind through the valley.

At the end of a 23-page decision issued yesterday afternoon, Henderson said: "In summary, all of the citizens of Canada are required to obey the law. It is my duty to ensure that each and every person obeys the law.

"It would be a dereliction of my duty if I were to permit the defendants to shut down the project by breaking the law, and thereby allow them to circumvent the many assessments and reviews that have been conducted to date."

McMaster professor Jim Quinn, speaking for the half-dozen protesters who argued against the injunction, said they would respect the court order while continuing to seek ways to oppose the $200-million project that will remove an estimated 40,000 trees from Red Hill Valley.

Project manager Chris Murray said the city was pleased with the ruling and would meet early next week with Dufferin Construction to see how soon the Oakville company can return to the site where its trucks were repeatedly turned away in early August.

Dufferin general manager Lloyd Ferguson later told The Spectator he could have a crew back as soon as the city wants.

The major obstacle remaining is an encampment of the Haudenosaunee (Ho-den-o-show-nee), citizens of the Iroquois Confederacy, who say they have the right to protect the valley and ancient native settlement sites along the expressway route.

Murray said traditional chiefs of the Confederacy have authorized discussions that he hopes will end the occupation without a confrontation, but he noted the judge has ordered the sheriff and "any officer" of the Hamilton Police Service to enforce the injunction at the city's request.

Frapporti, from the law firm Gowlings, said: "Though the city is entitled to proceed immediately, we will be consulting with all interested parties and native groups to determine how best we ought to proceed."

He said the city would also publish notices outlining terms of the injunction.

The legal battle isn't necessarily over. Frapporti said the Showstoppers protest group could seek leave to appeal, if it can find grounds to do so, and the city has 14 days to apply to recover its costs from the six citizens who volunteered to represent the group.

No spokesperson for the Haudenosaunee could be reached late yesterday.

Councillor Larry Di Ianni, chair of the city's expressway implementation committee, said he was happy the city won, but "not pleased we had to spend about $200,000 to argue a position yet again we knew was right all along.

"The public, while needing the road for all kinds of reasons -- economic, safety and environmental, would prefer we spent money on projects that help the community, not on lawyers."

Don McLean, chair of Friends of Red Hill Valley, said he was disappointed but not surprised by the decision.

"But there's no mention in it of the Haudenosaunee and I think that's where the world turns," he said.

"It doesn't resolve the question of rights of the native people. And it doesn't substantially change things with regard to what we see as the solution -- the civic election in November."

McLean said he was pleased the protesters had delayed what he saw as a city staff attempt to spend as much money as possible before the vote to reduce the chances of a new council stopping work.

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City awaits judge's ruling on Red Hill protesters

 By Eric McGuinness
The Hamilton Spectator, Tuesday, August 9, 2003

The City of Hamilton will have to wait until at least Friday to find out whether an Ontario Superior Court judge will let it remove Red Hill Creek Expressway protesters from a bridge construction site at Greenhill Avenue.

Similarly, expressway opponents must wait another three days to learn if they will be ordered to stop blocking Dufferin Construction, now more than a month late starting a $3.4-million contract that includes the first substantial tree-cutting for the valley road.

At the end of a day-and-a-half-long hearing yesterday, Justice Joseph Henderson reserved judgment on the city's motion for an injunction. He said he hoped to issue a written decision Friday.

To cover the interim period, the Welland judge extended terms of a temporary order under which expressway opponents have agreed to suspend picketing and the city to delay construction until the court rules.

The only clue to the decision came when Henderson agreed with the city's lawyer, Lou Frapporti, that protesters don't have to be arrested or charged before the city is entitled to an injunction.

That wiped out the opponents' argument that the city should have enforced its bylaws or the Criminal Code before launching a civil action.

After Dufferin trucks were turned back several times at the end of Albright Road, the city filed suit against Ken Stone and David Cohen, leaders of a group formed to try to halt construction of the expressway connecting the Lincoln M. Alexander Parkway to the Queen Elizabeth Way.

After the first court appearance before Justice David Crane, Stone and Cohen were allowed to withdraw and six other expressway opponents volunteered to replace them as defendants.

The defendants -- John Milton, Rae Mitchell, Heather Wilson, Jim Quinn, Gord Pullar and Andrew Loucks -- represented themselves.

Frapporti of Gowling, Lafleur and Henderson dismissed a defendant's Charter of Rights argument, saying "freedom of expression and assembly do not extend to acts of civil disobedience that are unlawful, period."

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Hampton says New Democrats will kill Red Hill Creek Expressway

Local education supervisor would also be gone, if party elected

Chinta Puxley
The Hamilton Spectator, Monday, September 8, 2003

Leader Howard Hampton says an NDP government would stop the Red Hill Creek Expressway, get rid of the "dictatorial" public school board supervisor and lower the cost of auto insurance.

In his first visit to the city since the provincial election was called last week, Hampton laid out his platform to about 75 supporters and local candidates in Hamilton West last night. He said the NDP stopped the Red Hill Creek Expressway in 1990 and it would do that again if elected Oct. 2.

"The fact that it's taken (so long) indicates there is no case for the Red Hill Creek Expressway," Hampton said.

Hampton also took shots at the provincial supervisor overseeing the public school board. He said calling Jim Murray a supervisor is "an insult to the English language.

"They are short-term dictators," he said. "I don't believe in appointed, back room, unaccountable, dictatorial people telling us how we should run our education system ...

"They will be gone immediately."

Hampton is the second party leader to visit Hamilton since the writ was dropped. Liberal leader Dalton McGuinty was here on the first full day of campaigning while Premier Ernie Eves is scheduled to swing through Hamilton for the first time Wednesday.

Hampton is expected back in Hamilton many more times before voters go to the polls Oct. 2. The riding of Hamilton West is crucial for the NDP. It's their sole Hamilton seat and one of only nine across Ontario.

Since NDP MPP David Christopherson decided not to run again provincially, the seat is considered a toss-up between all three parties. But Hampton said his party's chances are good.

"We always stand an excellent opportunity in Hamilton," he said. "The depth of support in Hamilton is strong."

Hampton used his first visit to highlight the party's policy of public auto insurance. Using local cars as props, Hampton said a public auto insurance system could cut some people's rates in half. The NDP is promising to start a public auto insurance system at a cost of $500 million. It's one of the party's main platform planks and one the NDP is hoping will help pull them out of last place in the opinion polls.

Political analysts say Hamilton West is a crucial riding, not only for the NDP but for Hampton himself. Henry Jacek, political science professor at McMaster University, said if Hampton loses seats in this election, he will be under tremendous pressure to step down.

Jacek -- who has been talking to voters and counting signs in the riding --said the NDP appears to be out in front in a close race.

"That's why Howard Hampton is here," Jacek said. "If he doesn't hold that seat, it would be a big blow to him and the NDP."

But Roy Adams, the NDP's Hamilton West candidate, said he's encouraged by the feedback he's getting so far. Although Hamilton West is across the city from the Red Hill valley, he said the expressway is an issue.

"I imagine people in Stoney Creek would really like to see it (built) but people here are against it," he said.

Doug Brown, Conservative candidate for Hamilton West, did not return phone calls yesterday. But Judy Marsales, the Liberal hopeful, said she's also hearing about the expressway at the door. Marsales and the Liberals want to see the expressway built.

Marsales said she has explained her position to people and doesn't think that has hurt her campaign. She said the NDP held the riding because of the personal popularity of Christopherson. She's not sure Adams has the same charisma.

"It's going to be a horse race," she said.

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Hamilton has 'dirty hands'

Court is told city's Red Hill record criminal

By Eric McGuinness
The Hamilton Spectator

Expressway protesters argue the City of Hamilton is an environmental criminal that doesn't deserve court help to push a road through Red Hill Valley.

McMaster University professor Jim Quinn told Superior Court Justice Joseph Henderson yesterday that the city comes to court "with dirty hands," convicted and fined for abusing Red Hill Creek and under Environment Ministry orders to stop sanitary sewage illegally entering storm sewers in the valley.

Quinn is one of six co-defendants who return to court Monday to finish presenting their case against the city's application for an injunction to stop pickets from blocking construction of a bridge to carry Greenhill Avenue over the planned Red Hill Creek Expressway. The defendants are representing themselves, without lawyers.

Lou Frapporti, who led a city team of seven lawyers and articling students, told the judge brought in from Welland that the north-south route through the valley is the last leg of a plan approved in 1985 to connect Highway 403 in Ancaster to the Queen Elizabeth Way in east Hamilton.

He said $260 million has been spent so far, the 12-kilometre Lincoln M. Alexander Parkway is open and three other valley bridges are already in use.

"The horse has left the barn."

Frapporti told the court protesters set up tents and repeatedly refused to let Dufferin Construction crews enter the Greenhill site early in August, even after police warned pickets were subject to arrest for mischief.

But police refused to arrest anyone, so the city sought a permanent court order to end the blockade. Both sides have agreed to a temporary injunction under which protesters are staying off the site and the city is delaying construction until the case is heard.

Frapporti suggested protesters had resorted to civil disobedience after exhausting "every regulatory, administrative and legal challenge" available, but that they should express their opposition without breaking the law.

He urged Henderson to order a stop to the pickets because "where bylaws of a municipality are flagrantly violated, the court ought to assist."

Andrew Loucks, another defendant, noted that expressway project manager Chris Murray had asserted on July 30 that all permits for the bridge were in place, but a Niagara Escarpment Commission letter submitted as evidence by the city says there were still issues outstanding. The court heard that commission staff only gave the go-ahead on Aug. 5, the day Dufferin was to have begun work.

Co-defendant Rachelle Mitchell said the protesters were not "fringe or über radicals who ought to be swept off the street." She argued "this kind of solidarity, this kind of movement, is what makes Canada a civil place."

Challenging Frapporti's contention that the protesters were lawbreakers, Mitchell suggested a criminal court might well find their peaceful protest was within the tolerance limits of a democratic society and didn't cross the line into criminal activity.

There was no mention yesterday of the Six Nations Confederacy citizens who continue to occupy the construction site. The natives are not taking part in the court action.

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Native faithkeeper had passion for nature

'The idea is not to place too much emphasis on worldly goods. To have everything is not important. What's important is to have your health and a healthy community.'
-- Norman Jacobs, a faithkeeper for the Onondaga Longhouse on Six Nations of the Grand River Territory, speaking about the traditional Mid-winter Ceremony in 2001.

In many ways, Norman Jacobs' explanation of the mid-winter ceremony could be an epitaph for his life.

The native activist, father, grandfather and friend died Sunday from cancer.

He was 60.

Jacobs, a Mohawk of the wolf clan, spent much of his life trying to make his community, and his world, a better place, fighting for the environment, education and treaty rights.

Hundreds of people attended his funeral service yesterday.

He was a member of the Grand River Post-Secondary Education Board and the Haudenosaunee (How-do-no-shaw-nee) Environmental Task Force, as well as of the Iron Workers Local 736 in Hamilton.

Jacobs became involved in the task force because of concerns about pollution in the Grand River.

He was also an impassioned protector of native rights, and was a member of the Confederacy council's standing committee on burial grounds.

In 1993, Jacobs led about 30 people to padlock the gates to a weir on the Grand River and demanded to be consulted about its fate.

"He was a very proud and strong supporter of the Haudenosaunee (people)," said David General, a friend. "One of the main things he did was bring together the traditional and non-traditional parts of the community. He was always so accommodating to people ... helping them come back to the (traditional) ways."

Jacobs was upset by the Red Hill Valley project as an environmentalist and as a lobbyist for native rights. He was involved in the debate over Red Hill, even while sick in hospital.

He was eager for the city of Hamilton and native people to discuss the issues, a recurring theme throughout his activism.

"He had this wonderful ability to make friends with people no matter what," said a close friend of Jacobs who did not want to be identified. "Academics have said that there are people who sometimes can be adversaries without being adversarial. Norman had that rare quality.

"It's rare to find good-natured passion, passion without that abrasiveness."

General hopes that passion will have a long-lasting legacy.

"They need more people like Norman. There's a void left ... Hopefully there is someone who was affected by him who will step up."

'Does it matter whether it can be scientifically proven that human life on Earth is in danger? While (the State of the Lakes Ecosystem Conference) monitors, gathers information, enters data, strikes committees and prepares budgets, the destruction and desecration of Mother Earth and life as we know it continues.'

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City won't bother Red Hill 'campers'

 Eric McGuinness
The Hamilton Spectator, Friday, August 29, 2003

The City of Hamilton will not try to end a native encampment in the Red Hill Valley before a court date next Friday.

That's the day an Ontario Superior Court justice hears arguments on whether to issue a permanent injunction against protests preventing construction of an expressway interchange.

Non-native protesters have stayed off the Greenhill Avenue bridge site since Justice David Crane issued a temporary injunction Aug. 15, but the native occupation continues.

Lawyer Lou Frapporti, representing the city, said yesterday a letter was sent to the Six Nations Iroquois Confederacy Wednesday expressing concern over the natives' failure to comply with the court order.

He said the letter went to lawyer Paul Williams, who represented the Confederacy Aug. 15, "reminding him that he, on their behalf, consented to the order" requiring that all protesters stay off the land until the next hearing.

Frapporti said that, if the city wins its permanent injunction, it will as quickly as possible begin contempt proceedings and seek to remove anyone remaining at the work site.

The Haudenosaunee, supporters of the traditional chiefs of the Iroquois Confederacy, built a roundhouse of poles and tree branches in the woods off Albright Road in early August while non-native protesters were refusing to let Dufferin Construction start work on a bridge to carry Greenhill over the expressway route.

A sacred fire is kept burning in the roundhouse, a handful of people camp overnight, and many more gather at times in support. A picnic shelter has been set up near stacks of bottled water and firewood. There's often a cooking fire burning, and a blue tarp appears to screen a privy nearby.

Norm Jacobs, one of the hereditary chiefs, issued a permit for the protest, and Roberta Jamieson, chief of the elected Six Nations Band Council, wrote Mayor Bob Wade to say her people oppose the construction because they have rights to the area that have not been addressed.

Curiously, though, neither the band council nor the confederacy will take part in the court fight over a permanent injunction.

Julie Monture, special assistant to Jamieson, said this week the band council has chosen to "pursue other options." Neither Williams nor any another confederacy spokesperson could be reached.

One man heading for the campsite yesterday, who would not identify himself, warned a reporter that, "This could be another Oka, maybe bigger than Oka," referring to a dispute over expansion of a golf course in Quebec that led to a 78-day armed standoff in 1990.

Local resident Aggie Juszkiewicz heard Oka mentioned and came out to complain.

"They've been planning this road for 57 years, before I was born. I've been in Hamilton 31 years and the city needs the expressway."

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First Nations have a claim

 RE: ‘Six Nations’ Red Hill claim defies native history’ (Aug. 20).

Ignorance of and inaccuracies about First Nations history have once again reared their ugly heads. Andrew Dreschel’s commentary about Six Nations’ “flim-flammery” not only smacks of colonialism and conceit, but misleads readers to believe in erroneous information.

Dreschel claims that the Five Nations had been driven out of the area north of Lakes Erie and Ontario a decade or so before 1701 by the Ojibwa. For the record, the Five Nations withdrew peacefully and orderly to national territories in present-day upstate New York to provide reinforcements against attacks by the French.

Although the Ojibwa did indeed compete with the Five Nations for rich fur resources, there was no clear victor. In 1700, they eventually entered into a mutually binding treaty to hold in common the hunting grounds north of Lakes Erie and Ontario. This treaty ended the beaver wars between the Five Nations and Ojibwa, and was regularly renewed thereafter.

Dreschel also writes that the English “Crown retained the right to use and develop the land.” In actuality, the Five Nations placed their hunting grounds in present-day Ontario under English protection by virtue of the Nanfan Treaty of 1701 to maintain continued and unimpeded access to vital hunting grounds and prevent encroachment by Europeans.

Dreschel implies conservation is incompatible with hunting rights. Indeed, conservation is integral to ensuring a viable hunting ground. The Five (later Six) Nations have always been sensitive to the need to cultivate game, fish and food supplies as well as the relationship between earth and game — the delicate balance of conservation and hunting.

Dreschel questions whether the protection of hunting grounds in the Nanfan Treaty of 1701 extends to the present- day Red Hill valley because provincial laws prevent hunting in densely populated urban areas such as the Red Hill valley. This appears to be based on the erroneous assumption that the Nanfan Treaty of 1701 only protects the right to hunt with firearms, which activity would threaten human life in urban areas. However, the protection of hunting rights in the Nanfan Treaty of 1701 includes a broad range of hunting, trapping, fishing and harvesting activities that do not threaten human life in urban areas. In addition, wherever treaty or aboriginal rights have been asserted by a First Nation, an obligation to consult is imposed. The Crown or third parties who will be using land or resources in such a way as to affect an aboriginal or treaty right must consult in good faith with that First Nation and reasonably accommodate their interests.

Dreschel’s commentary is based on contentions demonstrating, at a minimum, historical ignorance. Misguided and erroneous information only furthers the divide between Canadians and First Nations at a time when we urgently need to work together in cooperation. Whitewashing history? To Dreschel, we say: Do your homework.

— Chief Roberta Jamieson, Six Nations, Ohsweken.

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Save Red Hill Creek

 BY GORD PERKS (EYE Magazine, Thursday, August 21, 2003 -ENVIRO)

We must do what we can to stop the construction of the Red Hill Creek Expressway. We must because we treasure important ecosystems, because we oppose sprawling, car-dependent development and because we are contesting what is meant by "democracy." Red Hill is both a precious place and a precious political moment.

The expressway is planned as a 7.5-kilometre highway running through the Red Hill Creek Valley, which snakes down from the Niagara Escarpment to the east end of Lake Ontario. Transportation planners who work from different maps see the expressway connecting the Lincoln Alexander Parkway to the QEW.

Red Hill Creek Valley is made up of over 700 hectares of mostly forested natural area and parkland. It has remarkably diverse plant, mammal, bird, fish and butterfly populations. Over half of the valley is in the United Nations-designated Niagara Escarpment World Biosphere Reserve. Building the expressway would require blowing the biggest man-made hole ever through the escarpment, then rerouting the creek through a new 7.6-kilometre trench, and finally clearing a quarter of the valley and stripping out 41,000 trees. A native band, the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, have asserted their inherent rights to camp, hunt and fish in the Red Hill Creek Valley. They have told the city to stop the project and have issued a permit to protesters to occupy the land and frustrate construction efforts. Also at issue are 22 archaeological sites in the valley.

The two purposes of the road are: 1) to add the final link to a trucking route that runs from the American Midwest, across southern Ontario, over to New York state. Some call this the NAFTA highway. It would allow truckers to bypass tolls in the US, and would shave 9 kilometres off the current route; 2) to open up the area south of Hamilton for subdivision development. Hungry developers are already queuing up at the Ontario Municipal Board to win approval for plans to slap sprawl on this spot.

For a visceral understanding of the issues at stake, meditate on two questions: what would Toronto (and Markham) be like if we hadn't built the Don Valley Parkway? What would Toronto be like if the Spadina Expressway hadn't been stopped? Look deeper into the Spadina question. Look beyond the fact that Forest Hill, the Annex and Chinatown would have been blasted to smithereens. Apply the aphorism "to the victor, the spoils."

The Spadina Expressway battle was a watershed moment in the civic life of Toronto. It made heroes of people like Jane Jacobs and the late Colin Vaughn. It emboldened others from the struggle to do still more. They include some of the Toronto School Board trustees who brought in heritage language programs and a host of other progressive reforms that Harrisites haven't been able to completely dismantle. The Spadina struggle made way for the famous "reform councils" at Toronto City Hall, councils that saved and strengthened the neighbourhood character of the city and developed world-renowned programs such as the Healthy City model.

The politics that brought us all of this were legitimized because they triumphed in the Spadina Expressway battle. How different things would be if the other politics had prevailed. Replace protest, street theatre, marches, civil disobedience and an alphabet soup of community organizations with backroom deals, bureaucratic control and growth at any cost. Civic duty in this scenario is reduced to paying taxes on time, following rules and picking a candidate from a ballot just as you would pick a brand of soft drink from a variety store shelf.

Back to the Red Hill battle: the question of which politics will be honoured, legitimized and tolerated is precisely what is in play. Should the expressway be built just because the duly elected Hamilton City Council has decided that it should be? Should protesters back off because Hamilton's city fathers are seeking a court injunction to end the protests and criminalize the native people and activists who have been delaying construction these past three weeks? What is your civic duty?

If you answer this last question the same way that hundreds of anti-expressway Hamiltonians have answered it, and you want to join the battle against the expressway, you can find out what help is needed by going to www.hwcn.org/link/forhv/.

I should acknowledge my friend Don McLean for much of the information above. For well over a decade, Don has been an awe-inspiring researcher and organizer on this issue.

PERSONAL NOTE

This was written with pencil and paper during the big blackout. For reacquainting me with that pleasure, I want to thank everyone who pushed for deregulation, privatization and free trade in electricity. I also want to thank the energy technocrats who built a big, centralized, brittle power system while pooh-poohing environmentalists who pleaded for conservation and green, small-scale, flexible power systems.

Gord Perks is a campaigner with the Toronto Environmental Alliance. Enviro appears every two weeks.

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On Red Hill

A quarter-century scrap over controversial expressway opens a legal hornet's nest

By JOHN BACHER, NOW Magazine, Thursday, August 21, 2003

Hamilton – ecologists have re moved their banners and their protest tents from the golden trefoil-dappled meadow at the foot of Greenhill Avenue. Now nothing is left but the rustle of the tall grasses. But after a quarter-century contest over the proposed Red Hill expressway, this silence will clearly be temporary. Last Friday (August 15) an agreement was reached in court whereby environmentalists will leave the site in exchange for a delay in construction of the much-disputed highway – that is, until September 3, when court proceedings begin on a city of Hamilton bid to remove anyone blocking construction.

The question is, will the city be able to steamroll over protests from an astounding number of constituencies to legally proceed? The injunction move certainly has an air of desperation about it. The city watched helplessly last week as protest campers stopped construction trucks from beginning a feeder road.

And municipal authorities must know what a legal hornet's nest their bid is sure to stir up, including debates over the Migratory Birds Convention Act, the Fisheries Act, the Planning Act and the Niagara Escarpment Act. Not to mention a 300-year-old treaty between the Iroquois and the British Crown, called a Deed of Trust, which may fundamentally throw into question land tenures for all of southern Ontario.

Indeed, the most sweeping objections in Friday's courtroom drama came from lawyer Paul Williams, representing the Iroquois Confederacy at Six Nations near Brantford. The Red Hill Valley has 22 identified archaeological sites, including an 11,000-year-old site and a native village whose partial excavation has generated over 56,000 artifacts.

It was Williams's treaty claims that shook up the proceedings. Referring to the 1701 treaty, he said it gave the British the obligation to act as an agent of the Iroquois with respect to an area of land reserved for them, "an area which includes southern Ontario and was known as the Beaver Hunting Ground.''

To this, Superior Court Justice David Crane in some degree of shock responded, "Are you saying the city of Hamilton is a hunting ground?"

Answered Williams, "Although our people have not hunted in the Red Hill Valley for many years, it is viewed by our people as a hunting ground, an area where we can gather the fruits of nature. Our role here is as protector of the valley.''

This explains why in April the Confederacy ordered all digging in the valley to cease and then posted no-trespassing signs, making it clear that these were not directed at hikers. Though they denied a permit to the city of Hamilton, the Confederacy gave one to campers protesting the construction. These permits pledged those who entered to abide by the Iroquois Great Law of Peace and to refrain from "violence, verbal and physical, towards any person'' and to "not damage property.''

So now the city is facing the combined opposition of bird watchers, eco activists and a prestigious traditional First Nation government. And while the Friends of Red Hill Valley folk were party to the vacating deal, Six Nations traditionalists who don't recognize the Canadian court system are maintaining their own parallel camp in the black walnut and oak forest that guards the slope of the Red Hill Creek's valley. Deep in these woods, near the centre of the designated construction site, they have built what they call a "round house," an arbour protecting what they say is a sacred fire.

Nature lovers can only hope it keeps on burning.

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Red Hill is crown jewel of city's bountiful treasures

By Barbara Mersereau
The Hamilton Spectator, Column, Thursday, August 21, 2003

A long-billed green heron, only the second I have ever seen, is silhouetted against the sky. A pair of yellow goldfinches rustle in the bushes just ahead, and two cardinals flash by with their flaming wings.

This is what it's all about, I thought. Scarcely 100 paces into the Red Hill valley on a muggy August day, I had been treated to a glimpse of its bountiful wild life. On the other side of the entrance, excited enthusiasts formed plans to continue their struggle against the closure of this green oasis, miraculously located within city borders.

I was visiting the gate-front of the park, among elderly hikers in neatly tailored khaki pants and beige shirts, women of all ages in summer dresses or shirts, men in business suits, and a large number of young people, many in the de rigueur uniform of torn jeans, green hair, and pierced noses.

Colourful handmade signs abounded illustrating the sad consequences of a park closure -- bad air, loss of bird and animal habitat, destruction of Hamilton's most beautiful natural attraction.

Where would the deer family and the baby rabbits go? What would the returning birds find, as they searched for their old familiar nesting places? Instead of a cool forest with trees, water and insects, there would be a solid mass of concrete.

Earnest young people, deeply concerned with preserving the natural environment, went about signing up volunteers to be a silent witnessing presence before the advent of the crushing machinery that threatens this valley.

The large chart for the road-building project shows a complex array of artificial flood basins and creek diversions. Such risky plans should make Hamiltonians stop and think -- the lower-city residents, who suffered flooded basements from rain and snow, should be especially suspicious and wary. Altering water courses is at best a chancy business, and there exist many precedents of ensuing disaster after such attempts.

Such large-scale destruction and alterations would have many serious and unpredictable consequences, and cannot be undone. When or if the implementation of an expressway where there was once a refuge for plants, animals and people happens, the park is gone forever, never to be green again.

Contrary to what passing traffic on the Queen Elizabeth Way sees, with the dark murky clouds billowing smoke from factory stacks, Hamilton is not just another industrial centre. It is a richly endowed area with many beautiful natural land tracts, flowers, trees and nesting places. Beaches, waterfront boating, delightful hiking trails are all contained within our border, making Hamilton the envy of most urban centres. The Red Hill valley is the crown jewel of this bountiful collection of treasures.

Roads can be built anywhere. Why choose the middle of an irresistible local oasis and magnet to nature lovers everywhere? Other cities must be wondering what we can be thinking about -- contemplating the destruction of our most prized possession of green space.

Before we commit the killing of thousands of animals, birds, trees and plants, let us draw back and be thankful that we have such a beautiful place to go for recreation, and strive to preserve and protect such pieces of green environment.

It is our children's heritage. Don't we owe it to them?

Barbara Mersereau lives in Hamilton and is a former member of The Spectator's Community Editorial Board.

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Natives ignore Red Hill injunction

Six Nations campout continues as non-native activists serve notice they'll take fight to court

By Peter Van Harten
The Hamilton Spectator, Wednesday, August 20, 2003

A group of Natives from the Six Nations Iroquois Confederacy is ignoring an injunction barring anti-expressway protesters from a site in the Red Hill Valley and remain camped out there.

Superior Court Justice David Crane issued a temporary injunction Friday barring both protesters and construction crews from the site near Albright Road where confrontations with picketers halted work in the past two weeks.

Community activists opposing the $200-million expressway through the Red Hill Valley broke up their camp and left on the weekend but the Native group remained.

Lawyer Lou Frapporti, acting for the city, said Hamilton officials are consulting the sheriff's office and police to decide what to do about the continued occupation.

A spokesperson for the Confederacy Natives could not be reached yesterday but aboriginal protesters have said earlier they are protecting historic rights to the valley set out in treaties.

Yesterday, six non-Native community activists filed court documents challenging the city's request for a permanent injunction that would bar expressway protesters from the construction site.

A court hearing on a permanent injunction will be held Sept. 3 and yesterday was a court deadline for groups to declare that they want to challenge it.

Lawyer Paul Williams who acted for the Confederacy last week says he has received no instructions on whether to challenge a permanent injunction.

The Confederacy is a traditional voice for Natives at the Six Nations where Chief Roberta Jamieson heads the elected council.

The elected council said yesterday it supports the Confederacy but has decided not to challenge Hamilton's injunction bid on Sept 3.

Instead, the elected council will consider other measures including alternative legal action.

The council is holding a meeting Aug. 27 to outline the impact of historic treaties on the city's expressway project.

The six community activists filing documents yesterday are John Milton, Heather Wilson, Gord Pullar, Andrew Loucks, Rachelle Mitchell and James Quinn.

They are seeking to replace activists Ken Stone and David Cohen, specifically named by the city in its injunction bid.

"We're putting ourselves on the hook and are at risk," says Quinn, a biology professor at McMaster University.

He said the city has scared off a lot of people from fighting the expressway with the injunction bid because it has threatened to recover legal and court costs from challengers.

The six, who held a press conference outside city hall yesterday, say the injunction would contravene their Charter rights of freedom of speech and political expression.

And they say the city's injunction documents vilify expressway opponents as "conspirators," "trespassers," and "lawbreakers."

Instead of charging expressway opponents with trespassing or other criminal offences they could fight in court, they say the city is attempting to intimidate opponents with an injunction and threats of legal costs.

Loucks says that because the court deciding the injunction bid will likely only accept written evidence, expressway opponents will be forced into an "expensive paper war" with the city's "corporate high-priced legal firm."

McMaster Professor George Sorger and Lynda Lukasik, both award-winning environmentalists, say they anticipate being able to present evidence to the court.

Protesters are being vilified but it's the city that has the sorry record of being convicted and fined for failing to protect and care for the valley, said Sorger.

And Native protesters are being belittled in Hamilton Spectator editorial cartoons and columns for their attempts to enforce historic land use treaties, he says.

Lawyer Frapporti says the continued Native campout is not viewed as a "pressing priority" because both court and city officials are still busy grappling with the effects of last week's power blackout.

Lawyers for the Confederacy Natives agreed to the temporary injunction and are expected to adhere to it, he said.

And if the non-native activists felt the city was intimidating protesters and contravening their rights, they should have voiced those arguments at last week's court hearing before agreeing to the temporary injunction, he said.

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Red Hill important to NEC

 By Diane Green
The Hamilton Spectator, Tuesday, August 19, 2003

'What are the natural features which make a township handsome? A river, with its waterfall and meadows, a lake, a hill, a cliff or individual rocks, a forest, and ancient trees standing singly. Such things are beautiful." -- Henry David Thoreau, Journal, Jan. 3, 1861

"Each town should have a park, or rather a primitive forest ... a common possession forever, for instruction and recreation." -- Journal, Oct. 15, 1859

"We need the tonic of wilderness, to wade sometimes in marshes where the bittern and the meadow-hen lurk, and hear the booming of the snipe; to smell the whispering sedge where only some wilder and more solitary fowl builds her nest, and the mink crawls with its belly close to the ground. At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be infinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomable. We can never have enough of nature. We must be refreshed by the sight of inexhaustible vigour, vast and titanic features, the sea-coast with its wrecks, the wilderness with its living and its decaying trees, the thunder cloud, and the rain, which lasts three weeks and produces freshets. We need to witness our own limits transgressed, and some life pasturing freely where we never wander." -- Thoreau, Walden

I think Henry Thoreau would have understood the incredible importance of maintaining the Niagara Escarpment for future generations.

It seems timely to recall the purposes for which the Niagara Escarpment Planning and Development Act came into being, namely "to provide for the maintenance of the Niagara Escarpment and land in its vicinity substantially as a continuous natural environment, and to ensure only such development occurs as is compatible with that natural environment."

It is doubtless for this reason that the Niagara Escarpment Commission (NEC), contrary to reports in The Spectator on July 9, is reserving approval for the construction of the Red Hill Creek Expressway.

In June the NEC tabled a letter that asked it to issue a stop work order if Hamilton begins expressway construction. Far from "giving a go," as reported in The Spectator headline, the commission asked its staff to write to the city to obtain clarification on their plans and positions related to the escarpment lands.

In expressing its opposition in 1979 to all six alternatives proposed by the city for Red Hill valley, and arguing that an alignment using Highway 20 was the best option if in fact a need for an expressway was definitively established, it wrote "The Commission is very concerned, therefore, that all six alternatives selected for detailed evaluation in Phase 3 will have a severe or very severe impact on the natural environment of the Escarpment and the Red Hill Creek Valley" (letter to former Hamilton-Wentworth region, May 28, 1979).

Recognizing that Hamilton's chosen alternative in Red Hill valley would lead to "very severe impact," the NEC submitted a minority report in support of the Highway 20 option.

In 1978 the commission also questioned the population estimates that were supplied by Hamilton to justify the need for an expressway, and were ultimately proven right in 1981 when Hamilton revealed it had overestimated the 2001 population by 105,000 people.

And again in April, 1984, when the region applied for an NEC development permit, NEC staff recommended that it be refused. The NEC was unable to make a ruling because of the pending Joint Board hearing, but the Commission voted that "The NEC is not in agreement with the proposed Red Hill Creek Expressway at this location since it is in conflict with the purpose and objectives of the Niagara Escarpment Planning and Development Act and the policies of the final proposed Plan" (April 19, 1984).

This was also the position maintained in the Joint Board hearings in 1984-85, but in consideration of their lack of representation on the Joint Board, the NEC set out conditions to be met should the board approve the project. The commission specifically required that approval of compliance to the board's conditions must come from the commission itself and not staff. The board's conditions included requirements for detailed plans to minimize the effects of construction on escarpment and valley slopes, and protect existing vegetation through tree preservation and planting.

Today, the city plans to relocate Red Hill Creek on its course from the foot of the escarpment to the QEW, a plan not even contemplated in 1985, even though it expects that high-level impacts will occur throughout the entire Red Hill Creek valley system including the re-entrant section into the Niagara Escarpment.

The city plans to cut an 80-metre wide and 12-metre deep hole in the face of the escarpment -- the single largest cut in Ontario history. Other major changes to the project within NEC lands include construction of a 220-metre viaduct, several stormwater ponds and a complete redesign of the Greenhill Avenue interchange.

The city has made these changes despite far greater knowledge now in existence concerning the escarpment lands and the flora and fauna that inhabit them, such as the nationally vulnerable Southern Flying Squirrel and many other rare species on NEC lands. In addition, more than 30 archeological sites have been discovered, mostly within the NEC lands, including an 11,000 year old site that is the first evidence of humans in the Hamilton area, and a native village whose partial excavation has generated over 56,000 artifacts.

"If a man walk in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer; but if he spends his whole day as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making earth bald before her time, he is esteemed an industrious and enterprising citizen. As if a town had no interest in its forests but to cut them down!" - Henry David Thoreau

The NEC should carefully reflect on its interests in Red Hill valley, for this and future generations.

Diane Green lives in Oakville. She is director of conservation and education for The Hamilton Naturalists' Club, and writes on behalf of it.

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Six Nations' Red Hill claim defies native history

In the Nanfan treaty of 1701, Crown retained the right to use, develop the land

Andrew Dreschel
The Hamilton Spectator, Column, Monday, August 18, 2003
read Six Nations' Chief Roberta Jamieson's response

The Six Nations' claim to the Red Hill valley is a piece of flim-flammery worthy of some of the fast ones white settlers on either side of the Canadian-American border tried to pull on the natives' ancestors.

The elected band council claims the Red Hill valley is part of the Six Nations' traditional hunting and fishing grounds.

Meanwhile, some members of the traditional Confederacy -- the band council's political rivals on the Grand River reserve -- are claiming the valley is Six Nations territory and have been issuing permits to non-native expressway protesters, who were happily accepting them with either a bumpkin-like simplicity born of historical ignorance or gleeful expediency.

The band council has at best a shaky legal leg to stand on. The traditionalists are plain out to lunch.

Let's deal with the band council first.

It is basing its eleventh-hour entry into the Red Hill rehash on the Nanfan treaty of 1701, in which the Iroquois Confederacy, which was comprised of five tribes until the Tuscarora joined later that century, ceded all its territory in southwestern Ontario to the British in exchange for a guarantee of free hunting rights over the land forever.

The fact the Iroquois had been driven out of the area a decade or so earlier by the Ojibwa, known in southern Ontario as the Mississaugas, probably doesn't matter legally because British negotiators didn't make the treaty dependent on possession or re-conquest.

But the courts have recognized that the Nanfan treaty did not give absolute rights to either party. The Crown retained right to use and develop the land. The Iroquois had the right to hunt it.

Given those competing interests, the fact that the province regulates where hunting is allowed and that bagging game is prohibited in the Red Hill valley, which runs through a densely populated urban area, can't be ignored, despite some legislative exemptions for natives.

In addition, it's hard to see how the sudden laggard attempt by Six Nations to assert hunting rights on city land legally slated for highway development can be taken seriously since it neither recognizes the reality of changing times and urban boundaries or meets the legal test of reasonableness.

If the band council is looking to raise awareness of native rights, it picked the wrong time and place to do so.

It has, however, created an absurd alliance between natives who are asserting hunting rights with conservationists who want to protect the habitat of the wildlife in the valley from the expressway. You have to wonder what the rare southern flying squirrel of valley fame might make of all this. Would it perhaps prefer the bulldozer to the skinning knife?

But as weak as that case is, the traditionalist claim that the valley is actually Six Nations' territory is simply full of prunes.

If any native group had a claim to the valley, it was the probably the Neutrals, who lived in the area for centuries before being so thoroughly wiped out by the Iroquois in the mid-1600s that even their native name was obliterated from historical memory.

They were called the Neutrals by the French because they refused to take sides in the wars between the Iroquois Confederacy and the Hurons. At that time, the Iroquois' turf was south of lakes Ontario and Erie, with heavy concentrations in upstate New York.

The Neutrals who weren't killed off by the Iroquois in their expansionist wars were forcibly assimilated and persecuted with such fury that even those who took refuge with other tribes were ruthlessly pursued to the extent the Iroquois were willing to war with anyone who took them in.

Let's face it, by today's standards the Iroquois would probably be accused of genocide or ethnic cleansing. The contention that belonging to the same ethno-linguistic group as the Neutrals gives them some moral standing over Red Hill makes about as much sense as saying it's OK for Serbs to speak on behalf as Croats, or vice versa.

After destroying the Neutrals, the Iroquois occupied their land in southern Ontario for about 50 years before abandoning it in the face of pressure from the Mississauga. They only returned after the American Revolution when their British allies purchased the Grand River tract for them from the Mississauga.

To post signs claiming the Red Hill valley is Six Nations' territory is worse than a romantic conceit, it's whitewashing history.

To send letters to the Hamilton Spectator, e-mail letters@hamiltonspectator.com and include your name, address and daytime telephone number.

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Temporary truce reached between Red Hill opponents

 Barbara Brown
The Hamilton Spectator, Saturday, August 16, 2003

Both sides of the Red Hill Creek Expressway fight agreed to a temporary injunction yesterday that would see protesters break camp in the valley and City Hall call off its bulldozers for another three weeks.

About 100 opponents of the $200-million project crowded into a courtroom where lawyers for the city and a diverse group of protesters appeared yesterday before Superior Court Justice David Crane.

The city still intends to seek a permanent order to stop protesters from blocking construction when the case returns to court on Sept. 3. The municipality claims the pickets and campers are trespassing and have resorted to civil disobedience, having exhausted all democratic avenues to halt the expressway. It specifically names Ken Stone and David Cohen as defendants in the action.

"I think both sides wanted a cooling-down period because tempers have been hot on both sides," said lawyer Mark Coakley, who represents the two Hamilton men.

Lawyer Jim Fyshe represented individuals who were not named as parties to the proceedings but who wanted a say in the matter. He cited as examples environmental activist Lynda Lukasik, McMaster University biology professor George Sorger and Don McLean of the Friends of the Red Hill Valley. Paul Williams, counsel for the Six Nations Iroquois Confederacy, claimed the Haudenosaunee had treaty rights dating back to 1701. Confederacy members have built a roundhouse around a fire in the woods near Greenhill Avenue and view themselves as protectors of the land.

Kirsten Nicholson, lawyer for the Six Nations elected council, said she did not have instructions as yet although her clients may also seek intervener status.

Crane said he had read the city's legal materials, but had not received anything from opponents of the project. "I would say that it's a strong case for an injunction, and I say that to everyone who is here today."

Nonetheless, he agreed to delay the hearing of the application for permanent injunction until Sept. 3. He then issued a deadline of Tuesday for anyone who wanted to apply for intervener status. City lawyers will have an opportunity to cross-examine prospective interveners, beginning Aug. 27. The judge warned both sides that he would not tolerate any grandstanding in his courtroom.

"This court and the administration of justice is apolitical. We have no interest in the politics of this matter and in my view it's inappropriate to make any attempt to turn this into a political forum."

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Police won't evict Red Hill protesters:

City seeks injunction to prevent blocking site

Eric McGuinness
The Hamilton Spectator, Friday, August 15, 2003

The city says it is asking a judge today to order expressway protesters out of Red Hill Valley because Hamilton police won't arrest them.

Police say people have the right to protest peacefully; they will make arrests only for obvious crimes such as assault or property damage.

Deputy Chief Tom Marlor said yesterday, "We try to be fair. Our job is to keep the peace. We are not an agent of anyone. This is not a new policy."

With protesters blocking entry to the valley off Greenhill Avenue since Aug, 5, the city is going to court this morning, seeking an order to keep people off Red Hill Creek Expressway construction sites and prevent blockage of streets or sidewalks.

The city's application for an injunction is to be heard by Superior Court Justice David Crane at 10 a.m. in Room 700 at the John Sopinka Courthouse.

In the absence of criminal charges, the city launched a civil suit against protest leaders Ken Stone and David Cohen along with "other persons unknown."

In its statement of claim, which remains to be proven in court, the city accuses the defendants of conspiring for months to halt construction and more recently of blocking Dufferin Construction trucks.

It says it has asked police "to attend at the site to prevent and/or apprehend those committing the various wrongful acts ... ," but "the police have refused to remove the defendants unless there is a breach of the peace or other criminal offence."

As a result, it asks for an order that would be enforced by a sheriff, a court officer, and that police be required to assist in removal of anyone who refuses to obey.

Protesters, meanwhile, are proceeding with plans for a "family park-nic" Sunday at the end of Greenhill Avenue one block west of Mt. Albion Road. Flyers advertise a potluck feast, music, games and guided tours, even though the city has put up signs saying the area is closed to the public.

While no pickets were marching yesterday, protest campers still had half a dozen tents pitched. Citizens of the Iroquois Confederacy were also occupying the roundhouse built last weekend around a sacred fire about half a kilometre off the road.

Spokesman Thohahoken, who calls himself a mediation specialist for the Fire People (those camping in the woods), argued that native rights take precedence over any order from the Ontario Court.

Thohahoken, who said he has been involved in many negotiations, including those over the Brantford South Access Road, which was never built, and the uprising at Oka, Quebec, said his people would refuse to honour an injunction, if one is issued.

With the power out late yesterday, it wasn't possible to find out if interested parties such as the Six Nations Band Council or Friends of Red Hill Valley plan to seek standing to take part in the injunction hearing.

Dufferin Construction, which has a contract to build a bridge to take Greenhill over the Red Hill Creek Expressway route, has informed the city it will not try to enter the site again until the protesters are removed. After being turned back several times last week, it says it worries about the safety of its employees, protesters and the general public.

Protester Brian Tammi, who has camped at the Greenhill site since Aug. 2, said Wednesday he wasn't worried about a court order because "they can't stop us. Our resolve is too high to let an injunction stop our actions."

He said others trying to protect the last open green space in east Hamilton are ready to engage in "creative protest," adding, "There are a million things we can do." Dana Plourde, who set up a tent Aug. 3, said she wasn't ready to pack up. "We'll just wait and see what happens Friday."

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CIty limits talks with natives

Mayor tells Six Nations chief it will discuss how, not whether, Red Hill will be built

By Eric McGuinness
The Hamilton Spectator, Thursday, August 14, 2003

The City of Hamilton is telling Six Nations Chief Roberta Jamieson it's willing to discuss how -- but not whether -- the Red Hill Creek Expressway will be built.

Mayor Bob Wade sent Jamieson a letter yesterday, saying the city had consulted experts who advised the eight-kilometre road through Red Hill Valley parkland would not infringe on native rights contained in the Nanfan Treaty of 1701.

Wade was replying to a letter in which the elected chief joined members of the traditional Confederacy in opposing further work on the $200-million project until concerns and rights of the Six Nations people are addressed.

The mayor told Jamieson: "...we look forward to continuing our dialogue with you in the weeks ahead and, if possible, act on your interests while we implement the completion of the project in a way that best meets the needs of the broader public, including the Six Nations."

Meanwhile, lawyer Lou Frapporti said the court order the city is seeking to end a protest that's keeping construction vehicles out of the valley would apply equally to natives and non-natives, including Confederacy members who have built a roundhouse around a sacred fire in the woods near Greenhill Avenue.

Frapporti stressed it will be up to a Superior Court justice to decide what to put in an order, if one is issued, but the city application that will be heard at 10 a.m. tomorrow asks that everyone be kept three metres outside the boundary of any Red Hill construction site.

Frapporti works in the Hamilton office of Gowling Lafleur Henderson, the firm handling Red Hill legal issues for the city.

He said the injunction application was filed Monday in Brantford to avoid alerting the two named defendants before city agents could serve them with notice of the court action Tuesday.

Those two are Ken Stone and David Cohen, leaders of Showstoppers, a group formed to try to stop construction in the valley. Cohen said yesterday he and other protesters were still seeking legal advice on how to respond to the application.

The notice is addressed to Stone, Cohen "or any agent or person acting under his, her or their instructions, John Doe, Jane Doe and other persons unknown."

Councillor Dave Braden, an expressway opponent, confirmed yesterday that all city staff and council members were ordered last Friday to say nothing about the expressway project without the legal department's OK.

That order led to cancellation of yesterday's meeting of the expressway implementation committee, a meeting where protesters hoped to make a presentation to the seven councillors who are members.

But Braden said he was paying no attention and went on to complain that the mayor was getting "terrible advice" and as a result being insensitive in his relationship with the Six Nations.

Braden said a good starting point would be for all the "chiefs" -- Six Nations chiefs and city decision-makers -- to sit down and talk. Instead, he said, the city has "chosen an impersonal, threatening legal route."

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City heads to court to oust Red Hill Creek protesters

Seeks injunction Friday to prevent further delay in building expressway

By Dan Nolan
The Hamilton Spectator, Wednesday, August 13, 2003

The city is going to court on Friday to seek an injunction to oust protesters stalling construction of the Red Hill Creek Expressway.

The city says that if it wins approval for the injunction, anyone ignoring the court order will be subject to removal, possible arrest and the costs with bringing the court remedy before a judge.

The city filed a notice of motion and statement of claim yesterday in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice.

In it, the city alleges the week-long protest is "wrongful, and constitutes trespass, nuisance, intimidation, inducement of breach of contract and conspiracy and is in violation of a number of municipal bylaws and intimidation provisions of the Criminal Code prohibiting blockage or obstruction of highways."

The city also seeks to have the protesters cover the costs of the court action. The document, which also includes numerous maps, names as defendants Ken Stone and David Cohen, members of the Showstoppers Union which aims to halt construction of the eight-kilometre roadway, plus "any agent or person acting under his, her or their instructions."

The decision to seek an injunction came as no real surprise as the city had threatened it would follow that course if protesters delayed entry of Dufferin Construction workers to begin work on the $200-million highway. It delivered a six-page warning July 31 to opponents such as Cohen and Don McLean of Friends of the Red Hill Valley that they faced arrest and lawsuits if they slowed or stopped construction.

City officials declined to discuss the court injunction after managers held a conference call yesterday "to discuss this particular issue," city spokesman John Gosgnach said. The city is hoping to present its motion to a judge Friday at 10 a.m. at the John Sopinka Courthouse.

Mayoral candidate and Councillor Larry Di Ianni, chair of the expressway implementation committee, said the document had not been run by him or councillors, but noted, "I think council directed that to happen. It's not a question of me. It's council's will. It's important for this project to be constructed."

The city says in its document that the expressway will provide economic benefits such as improve access to the John C. Munro Hamilton International Airport, and has gone through a rigorous "democratic process of approval" over the past few decades.

Councillor Margaret McCarthy, an expressway opponent, was dismayed the city was going to court. She visited the valley yesterday and said she was shown numerous native artifacts which she believes will be destroyed by the road.

"It's ignorance personified to pursue something in light of what I've seen. Do we have the authority to do this? We surely have the arrogance."

Some protesters did not appear to be rattled by the latest city action to get them to move. Stone, who spoke with other protesters at the construction site before meeting with lawyers last night, said: "I think that if we have a judge who studies the issues carefully, he or she will find we are perfectly entitled to challenge the city's unlawful construction of an expressway in Red Hill Valley."

Cohen said he didn't want to talk until he had obtained legal advice.

Heather Wilson, who delivered venison stew to fellow protesters for dinner, said: "We were expecting it, probably sooner than Friday."

-- With files from Eric McGuinness, The Hamilton Spectator

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Six Nations elected council joins opposition to expressway

 By Lisa Grace Marr
The Hamilton Spectator, August 13, 2003

Six Nations band council has thrown its support behind traditional Confederacy members in their opposition to the Red Hill Creek Expressway.

Elected Chief Roberta Jamieson sent a letter to Hamilton Mayor Bob Wade yesterday citing a lack of consultation over highway construction. She did acknowledge the city's "respectful handling of our ancestors' archeological artifacts" at the Red Hill valley through a recent facilitation agreement.

Jamieson said the Red Hill Creek valley represents some of the Six Nations' traditional hunting and fishing grounds.

"The Six Nations people have rights to an area in question including those found in the Nanfan Treaty of 1701 that Canadian courts recognize as a treaty protected by Section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982."

Some members of the traditional Confederacy set up a roundhouse with a sacred fire on Sunday night after putting up signs stating that it was Six Nations territory.

They issued permits allowing non-native protesters to camp out nearby. They have asked for the city to send representatives to discuss their issues.

However, the band council's letter may push the city into a legal and political quagmire from which it will be difficult to emerge.

Wade said he wasn't surprised by the band council's letter, as he knew from earlier comments made by Jamieson that the construction of the highway was not welcomed by anyone at Six Nations.

But Larry Di lanni, a councillor and head of the implementation committee, was taken aback by the latest development.

"It sounds very serious to me ... It looks as if we're talking about aboriginal rights ... and we're talking about another legal sphere in this.

"There needs to be some reflection on this ... I can tell you that the City of Hamilton absolutely needs this project. At the end of the day, I'm sure we'll be able to resolve these issues."

Di Ianni said the letter breached a protocol reached with Six Nations band council in the facilitation agreement which said all press releases would be issued jointly.

He also questioned the application of the Nanfan Treaty with respect to the Red Hill valley.

"I thought the Nanfan Treaty speaks to hunting rights. No one is allowed to hunt or fish in the Red Hill valley. But I hasten to add I am no expert in these matters."

Jamieson, however, argues Red Hill is traditional hunting lands and so Six Nations have rights there.

"They had a way of life there. They hunted. Over time, that gave rise to certain rights. They're native rights."

Jamieson said the band council will be having a public meeting and will discuss a plan of action which may include a "physical presence" with Confederacy members in the valley or a more "formal role."

"Our people are not protesters. We have a very different story than other people who are at the sites," Jamieson said. "We are not exercising civil disobedience. We are exercising our rights."

She said the band council is supporting the Confederacy's assertion of its rights as part of a broader strategy to advocate Six Nations rights and raise awareness among non-natives about those rights.

And that may not stop with the Red Hill valley.

"You'll see increasingly our council advocate for our people and educate," she said. "There's a big job there to be done."

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Report says expressway will bolster local economy

 By Chinta Puxley
The Hamilton Spectator, August 13, 2003

A $34,000 consultant's report commissioned by the city says the Red Hill Creek Expressway will make money by saving people time and encouraging business development.

The 25-page report -- done by the same Toronto firm that authored a recent report about the need for more industrial parks -- says the contentious Red Hill expressway will create short-term jobs and encourage industrial development in north Glanbrook.

It says transportation is vital to the economy of any city and Hamilton's highways lag behind other cities. The report says there aren't enough local highways being built and public transit can't meet the demand.

"Completing the Red Hill Creek Expressway will significantly improve accessibility to ... border crossings," the report said.

"The better the transportation system works, the less time people spend in their cars and the more time people can spend doing other things that benefit the economy."

The report is just one of many the city has commissioned to examine various concerns associated with the Red Hill expressway.

Highway opponents say this latest report amounts to wishful thinking and is fundamentally flawed because it was commissioned to support the city's position.

But supporters of the controversial highway say the report answers some longstanding questions that protesters have asked.

Councillor Larry Di Ianni said the city keeps commissioning studies because people keep asking questions.

"I don't want to see one more penny spent on consultants," he said. "We are in reactive mode, not proactive mode. I think we've seen the end as far as studies are concerned."

Di Ianni, who has long supported and defended the expressway's construction, said he agreed with the report's conclusions and hoped it could move the project forward.

"Taxpayer money is being spent with every day that goes by," he added.

But opponents argue spending $34,000 on a biased report is as wasteful as the delays in construction.

Don McLean, chair of Friends of the Red Hill Valley, said he would have welcomed a balanced cost analysis of the expressway.

Instead, he said, the city has commissioned a report to back up their decision to build the highway.

McLean said the report is flawed because it assumes the expressway would spur business development in north Glanbrook. He said just because the city builds a highway doesn't mean business will follow.

Councillor Dave Braden said the highway could make the lands around the expressway more marketable. But, he says, there are no guarantees and added, the potential economic advantages of the highway are outweighed by the negative impact it would have on the city.

City manager Bob Robertson said the report was commissioned to explore economic benefits, not settle debate.

Brantford mayor says take native concerns seriously

 By Lisa Grace Marr
The Hamilton Spectator, August 13, 2003

Context

Just as the city was drawing a line in the valley and preparing to apply for a court injunction to clear the Red Hill Creek valley of protesters to make way for construction crews, the smoke began to rise from a sacred fire.

It may not be easy to put out.

On Sunday night, traditional Six Nations members built a round house around a sacred fire, issued permits allowing non-aboriginal protesters to stay and asked the city to come and talk across the flames about the expressway.

Yesterday Six Nations elected band council issued a press release and sent a letter to Hamilton Mayor Bob Wade outlining its opposition to construction of the expressway and support for the traditional Confederacy.

And so the decades-long debate and years of court arguments and environmental protests took an abrupt turn.

Six Nations' participation in the debate has created a political landmine, with the potential for explosion.

Brantford Mayor Chris Friel has an intimate understanding of the delicacy of municipal-native relations, next door to Six Nations. When he first took office in 1994, there were four native occupations in the city.

One of the most critical involved a sewage line in the east end which was designed to cross land that falls under the Haldimand Tract Treaty and was claimed by neighbouring Six Nations.

After two years of intense negotiations, the city formally recognized the lands were under claim and that if the federal government favourably settled the claim, the city would pay compensation for the use of that land.

"(Disputes) often arise out of bad information, poor communication ... sometimes it's just a lot of misunderstanding," said Friel. "In Hamilton, they need to be educated about who they are dealing with, how they speak and how they think . . . It is unique."

He said it is a mistake to ignore or disregard native claims as unreal or unsubstantiated.

"Everybody either sits for a long time or you get into a confrontation or you get into a dialogue.

"Everybody gets their back up and into a defensive position (when natives express concerns) ... It's the only group we do this with. I know it, I've seen it over and over."

David Newhouse, a Trent University native studies professor and an Onondaga, says for non-aboriginals, such disputes raise the spectre of a loss of land or money. Aboriginals have similar fears. "One of the first reactions is fear, what will happen to the land?''

Newhouse said while there are many examples of disputes gone awry, such as at Oka or Ipperwash, there are some, such as between the Walpole First Nation and the federal and Ontario governments, which can be worked out. "If you can negotiate, you can get satisfactory resolutions. They do involve time, talking and compromise on both sides."

In 1994, Newhouse made a recommendation in a report for the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples that all municipalities include aboriginals in their planning commissions.

This came after reviewing the communities surrounding reserves, including Six Nations, which had no forum or structure to discuss issues.

Friel said there is now a Grand River Notification Agreement which sets out a system under which communities along the Grand automatically notify Six Nations about plans that may affect them.

But Friel said since Indian Affairs Minister Bob Nault unilaterally closed the Indian Commission of Ontario in 2000, there are no forums for discussion by municipalities and native groups. He said Brantford relied heavily on the commission to help resolve the dispute with Six Nations over the sewage line. For Hamilton, for the time being, there is no one to rely on.

However, the city did hire former Indian Commission of Ontario lawyer Michael Coyle as a facilitator, a move applauded by Six Nations Elected Chief Roberta Jamieson.

But Friel doesn't envy Hamilton as it faces the stress of dealing for the first time with native issues, at the same time as Six Nations is increasingly frustrated by Ottawa's foot-dragging on its land claim issues.

"How big the problem will be depends on Hamilton. Be smart, get good information, get good dialogue ... Do not go to the federal government. Get together ... and solve it as neighbours."

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Six Nations camps in valley: Quiet encampment hopes to host mayor

 By Emily Bowers
The Hamilton Spectator, Tuesday, August 12, 2003

The fire crackles, its smoke reaches up through the branches. Children sit in the grass nearby, visitors come and chat.

Away from the the picket lines, in the forest of the Red Hill Creek valley, members of the Six Nations reserve asserted their jurisdiction over the land on which the city wants to build an expressway.

The group arrived on Sunday evening and built a "sacred fire," under the shelter of trees in the park, said Thohahoken, a mediator from Six Nations.

"A group of people from Six Nations established that lodge in support of the Iroquois Confederacy asserting its jurisdiction over this land," he said.

Over the last two years some members of Six Nations posted signs around the valley claiming the land.

The establishment of the fire lodge, or round house as some call it, is part of that claim that Thohahoken said dates from 17th and 18th century treaties with what was then the Five or Six Nations Confederacy. These range from the two-row wampum that symbolizes the Iroquois continuing to live on their land forever, in harmony with Europeans, to the Treaty of Fort Stanwick in 1784, a peace treaty with the U.S. government.

"(The treaties) all assert that the Five Nations (of the Iroquois Confederacy) hold underlying title to that whole tract of land that goes across southern Ontario from Montreal to the Catskills across to Detroit and back up," Thohahoken said.

The Confederacy, the traditional leadership of the Six Nations, is separate from the government-created democratically elected band council. The council had been involved with some expressway discussions over concerns about archeological sites identified along the road's planned path.

By establishing the fire lodge, the Confederacy hopes to start a dialogue, something Thohahoken called "talking across the fire.

"It prepares a place for mediation," he said. "A place for discussion, dialogue and mediating conflicting points of view and conflicting interests in any dispute."

That's something Don McLean, chair of the Friends of the Red Hill Valley, is welcoming.

"I would think that the mayor should be here (to talk)," he said.

But the city of Hamilton said yesterday that it was preparing to apply for a court order to end the blockade keeping construction vehicles out of the valley at Greenhill Avenue.

Spokesman John Gosgnach said the city would seek an injunction soon.

"Since the matter will soon be before the courts, the city cannot comment any further at this time."

He also said the city couldn't comment on the Six Nations land claim, the latest twist in the ongoing Red Hill Creek Expressway debate.

Thohahoken said the group will be there "till it's finished," and wouldn't speculate on what they would do if construction started.

It's been a week since a small group of protesters established a camp at the end of Albright Road and Greenhill Avenue, effectively delaying construction that was slated to start Aug. 5.

Also yesterday, McLean said he has received a third threatening anonymous phone call in less than two weeks.

The calls, coming from pay phones to the Friends' hotline where callers leave messages that are picked up later by a staff member, threaten McLean specifically.

The latest call came Sunday and McLean said the person, a man, tells him to "watch his head."

Hamilton police are investigating the threats, McLean said.

"Things are heating up, obviously," he said, adding that while he's being cautious, he said that he's not too worried. "The tension probably rises at this point."

Tension was also rising among some residents. One man, who declined to give his name, spent much of yesterday watching the protesters.

"People are getting frustrated," he said. "We all want the highway. It will increase the value of the homes around here." Another resident blamed the media for encouraging the camp-out by covering the event.

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Expressway consultants costing city thousands

By Chinta Puxley
The Hamilton Spectator, Tuesday, August 12, 2003

The city is spending tens of thousands of dollars on consultants to navigate roadblocks associated with the Red Hill Valley Expressway.

A list of "emergency" services purchased by the city in the last few months shows Hamilton paid over $80,000 to a handful of consultants who have done everything from study termites to provide 24-hour security in the Red Hill Valley.

A University of Toronto termite expert is being paid $15,000 to determine if the critters will be displaced to nearby homes when the road is built. Another professor is being paid $34,000 to mediate between Six Nations -- who say the expressway will disturb sacred burial sites -- and the city.

A security company was paid $33,000 to guard an archeological dig -- 24 hours a day, seven days a week. These are a fraction of the outside experts brought in for the construction of the Red Hill highway.

Chris Murray, acting director of the Red Hill Valley project, said he isn't sure how much money has been paid out to consultants so far. But he said it's been a "heavy investment" -- the price of addressing concerns with the highway's construction.

"As matters arise, we are left to react to them," he said. "We have looked at everything from flying squirrels to trees to shrubs to grass."

Some say the city is taking a "blank cheque" approach toward consultants, using public money recklessly to push the expressway through. But Murray said the consultants have provided a valuable service.

He said the city hired termite expert Timothy Myles to head-off possible infestations. Myles is looking at whether termites reside in the Red Hill Valley and whether they will be displaced to nearby houses if the highway is built.

He's being paid $15,000 but Murray said he could be paid more if the city requires more detailed advice.

Murray said hiring a security company to patrol the archeological dig in the valley 24-hours-a-day was also necessary after looting was reported.

"These are things that come up that warrant our attention," he said.

But the cost of consultants has some people worried. Councillor Larry Di Ianni, a proponent of the highway, said the city is spending too much money on consultants that aren't providing technical or construction advice.

While he said the latest batch of consultants provide important services, he said the costs are mounting.

"We are paying out more in consultants than we need to or than we want to," Di Ianni said. "If we had resolved some issues with interest groups years ago, we wouldn't be spending money on facilitators. This could have been avoided."

Opponents of the expressway say the city has a lax attitude when it comes to Red Hill consultants. Don McLean, chair of Friends of the Red Hill Valley, said the city seems determined to put in the highway, regardless of cost.

He said the city cancelled a $130,000 tree planting program this year because of belt-tightening yet it spends hundreds of thousands on Red Hill consultants. "There doesn't seem to be any control over these types of expenditures," he said.

Still, some councillors say the money paid out to consultants is part of the cost of building a highway. Councillor Sam Merulla said the city doesn't have in-house experts to deal with all the concerns associated with the highway.

He said money has been set aside in the $19 million Red Hill budget to hire consultants. But he said that fund is dwindling because of the opposition.

"We are jumping through hoops," he said. "It's not every day we build an eight-kilometre highway."

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Video-taping valley protest final straw

 By Anne Jones (Columnist)
The Hamilton Spectator, Monday, August 11, 2003

To quote one journalist, the Red Hill Creek Expressway "has had more twists and turns than a youngster's Slinky." The public library lists nearly 200 books and reports identifying these twists and turns.

There are even eight full scrapbooks of Spectator clippings. Reading them, you see citizen opposition growing and you begin to wonder what's wrong with this project.

As Hamilton-Wentworth regional chair from 1973 to 1985, I supported the majority council decision. I remember it as a decision made after extensive study of alternatives.

I am certain that decision would not be made now, nearly a quarter of a century later. I personally believe, late though the hour is, that the Red Hill Creek Expressway should not proceed.

Why?

At least 40,000 trees will be lost. As they say, "the devil is in the details." This detail, relatively recently brought to light, is unacceptable to me. We know now how serious air pollution is. The Canadian Forestry Association says one large healthy tree produces enough oxygen for a day's needs for up to four people. Replacement trees -- the city has promised to plant more than are cut down -- will take years to be of benefit to us.

The province is planning to build a major highway -- the mid-peninsula highway -- that will pass near, or through, Hamilton. The recent recommendation by three former chairs of the Hamilton Conservation Authority -- Judge Tom Beckett, Councillor Russ Powers and Al Stacey -- that action on the Red Hill expressway be postponed until the traffic of the proposed "mid-pen" is assessed makes sense.

A city study shows that there will be two million trucks using the expressway annually; but one million of them will never stop here. Dr. Alvin Lee, former McMaster University president, and 100 faculty members, are calling for an independent review of the road. Lee pointed out, "trucks using it as a short-cut between Detroit and Buffalo will contribute nothing to local taxes, and the additional maintenance, noise, pollution will be borne by the local taxpayer."

A May 2003 consultant's report states that the expressway, "will double the number of bad air days along its route, not just from vehicle exhaust but from dust picked up in the air and blown, which is dangerous to health."

The cost has increased astronomically. It is now $200 million, with only 50 per cent paid by the province, at a time when Hamilton will see its capital debt increase from $271 million last year to $678 million in 2007.

Writing this article was not easy but I