June 24, 2009
Admittedly when I first heard that Tom Keefer was bringing a bus load of people to protest against the Caledonia Peacekeepers in Cayuga last night, I wasn’t sure what to think. This is a union after all so I anticipated something different from the usual racist, bigoted, ignorant crowd that gathers in small numbers to protest against law & order in Caledonia. Fortunately I’m not afraid to admit it when I’m wrong and I was very wrong.
Tom Keefer brought with him a motley crew of crazies that made Forrest Gump look like a Rhodes Scholar. Listening to Keefer being interviewed on CFRB on the drive to Cayuga, I began to understand a bit about the level of delusion this guy has as he rambled about the need for Canada to stop trying to give Six Nations money as compensation and instead hand over our land to them.
When the school bus arrived, and unloaded its crew of people who really could have benefited from the trip to education that bus was intended to provide, I had a beautiful and profound realization. These people had no clue who I was, so I could easily mingle with and record the crowd just like the good old days when I first started working with CANACE. Those were great time because nobody knew or cared who I was or what I was doing, so I was able to get in the middle of the action to get the inside scoop wherever it may be.
My favourite example of this was during the Stirling Street occupation in September of 2007. On the horrible night when Sam Gualtieri was beaten nearly to death by Natives in a home he was building for his daughter, I was able to just walk up to Stirling before the OPP had formed any sort of line to keep residents out and stayed there for hours. I’ll never forget phoning Gary McHale who was having dinner at the time and holding up the phone so he could hear the conversation the Native occupiers I was surrounded by at the time were having. They had no clue who I was and were explaining to me that they were from New York and had come up to get in on the action. One of them actually gave me candy in an effort to bond with me while explaining the plight of the Natives which he felt excused the attack on Sam. But I digress…
Before I continue, I feel it necessary to do something I truly didn’t think I would ever get to do. I must thank the OPP for doing an excellent job of keeping the whack jobs in line last night. They had something of a difficult time on their hands as the CUPE crew refused for about an hour to move off of private property and across the street where space had been set up for them to run their protest, but they did a great job of keeping the CUPE’s out of the actual meeting where they would no doubt have caused a significant disruption.
Although a school bus full of mostly hippies arrived at about 6:15, Keefer didn’t show up to his own event until nearly 90 minutes after it was supposed to start. He then set up a PA system and stood in the back of a nice new truck ranting to his people who clapped, cheered, yelped, and banged drums on cue in an attempt to make Tom Keefer sound important. The spectacle brought out residents who had a good laugh at the absurdity of the event.
Residents express their views
Interspersed with speeches from barely coherent hippies and a couple of people who tried their best to sound educated while spewing some of the most uneducated, bigoted, racist filth that I’ve heard in quite some time at the adoring crowd, was Keefer spewing what we recognize as Native supremacist BS. Listening to all of this I began to truly understand the statement that it takes all kinds.
Keefer ranted about connections between CANACE and white supremacy that don’t exist, lied through his teeth with almost every word, praised Six Nations for the peaceful way in which they have handled the past few years of oppression by the evil colonial Canadians, claimed to have been watching the situation for 3 years (during which he obviously learned nothing), bashed Mark Vandermaas for his military service as a Peace Keeper and inferred that he did it out of racist hatred for both Palestinians and Jews, explained to the crowd that everything everywhere is Native land, praised the Terrorist organization known as the Tamil Tigers, and used every catch phrase and buzz word he could muster to fire up his crowd.
Be sure to read Mark Vandermaas’s take on the event here
It was both amusing and disturbing to see what kind of people the Canadian Union of Public Employees allows to speak on its behalf, and it will be equally interesting to see how they like having to defend themselves in court when we file lawsuits in the near future for defamation. If the members of CUPE who are responsible for the Toronto garbage strike are half as deluded and radical as Tom Keefer, it’s no wonder the city can’t come to an agreement with them, and I truly pity workers who are being represented by these geniuses.
Seriously speaking, the only thing missing from last night’s anti law and order protest was someone chanting “Attica, Attica!”
Jeff Parkinson
JeffParkinson.ca 
Was is true there were only about 70 or so “protesters?” On the radio he claimed that about 275 people were expected. He can’t even do an honest estimate of how many useful idiots he can get out to these “events.”
There were probably close to 100 people who showed up on the bus, and then more filtered in as the night wore on. Reinforcements from Six Nations ranging from tiny, cute children holding propaganda signs to people who are well known for enjoying conflict showed up to join the CUPE crowd.
There may eventually have been 150 in that crowd but I was too busy trying to capture every second of everything that happened to actually do a head count. Never anywhere near 275 though.
peacekeepers?
i hope you choke and die on your patriotism
thank you
Thanks for sharing your obvious love of humanity with us. Too bad you’re too much of a coward to share your name, but that seems to be a common theme with people like yourself.
I hope one day you grow up enough to realize what a waste of your life it is to run around full of such hatred. It’s seriously not healthy!
It never ceases to amaze me how people with clearly no understanding of the facts, can walk into a dispute and make things worse. CUPE has no business being there, and members should strongly consider getting rid of this guy.
One can only imagine what Six Nations could do for their people by actually doing something rather than just protesting and spewing racists remarks. I believe that first nations people would suffer less if they took all their hatred into positively changing their reserve. The government treats everyone with the same level of contempt and disgust. The system is not designed to assist anyone, only infuriate.
Rather then getting caught up in the hatred, try doing something for your people today. Same deal down here with Shawn Brant, all those years of hatred got him nothing for his people. Be a Bartleman (lt. governor of ontario) and make things better not worse. None of us can change the past but we can change what we do NOW, AND TOMORROW.
CUPE get the facts and mind your own business, OR take better care of your membership especially the pensioners.
Annie; what you witnessed in Cayuga was not union solidarity but anarcho-communist fringe network building.
There is a world of difference between legitimate trade union defense of workers rights and anarcho-communist destabilizing and propaganda techniques. You had a front row view of raw agitprop in Cayuga. It was revisionist race baiting slanderous invective focused at creating an illusion of conflict between cultural or racial identity groups. One group defamed as an oppressor, one painted as their victim. The rhetoric was openly accusatory, inflammatory and instigative. Same old Bolshie BS these treacherous freaks have been spewing since the red October revolution. Look no further than the fringe left political movements if you want to find who’s culturing and exploiting the hostility that pits natives against their Canadian neighbors.
To hear this unCanadian racially charged excrement coming from supposed representatives of a Canadian trade union is disgusting and displays the depths to which unionism has sunk. I’ve been in a union much of my working life. I’ve been a proud member and a union steward. But I’d be damned if I would ever allow the inciting libelous freak show witnessed in Cayuga to be associated with trade unionism. Obviously CUPE has no self respect, or conventional union operational model to let these race ragging nihilists represent the union. A severe case of union mission misdirection.
The more transparent we are, the more likely things will run smoothly.
Likewise, don’t discredit important replies by not posting them.
The most imporant issue of that day was THAT DAY. A handful of people did what we all should have done – COME TOGETHER. To come to understand one another; each one shall teach one.
I and some others had shown true strength by challenging the foolish divide of the street being policed by the O.P.P., speaking with one another and spending that opportunity in SOLIDARITY.
PEOPLE, come on…. Most of us were too upset/misinformed to clearly see. The divide that was manufactured (the police and others not letting people cross the street to connect) is a clear example of the MACRO problem. The MICRO problem is within us ALL.
If we cannot challenge ourselves to break out of hateful habits, then we are WILLING never to understand each other nor ourselves.
Everyone, keep your head up. Let your heart lead you more often. I’m no doctor; I’ve the patience of one.
James D. Lauckner
(this is the second post, please post this one at least. Why didn’t you post the first one?)
Hello Mr. Lauckner,
I’m not sure what happened to any previous comment you posted (it may have been wiped out by my spam filter) but I’ll be glad to address your concerns now.
As I recall, you gave an interesting speech to the crowd at the CUPE protest, the basic premise being why can’t we all just talk and sort things out. Correct me if that was not you.
Mr. Keefer was phoned by Doug Flemming earlier in the day and invited to not only attend the meeting to hear for himself what was happening, but to bring witnesses from the crowd with him. He declined stating that he did not need to attend the meeting because he already knew what was going on.
A decision was made by Mr. Flemming to ask the OPP to keep people from the CUPE crowd out of the meeting because there were far too many to have fit in the Lions Hall and it was felt that folks from the side who were there to protest against the meeting would be a disruption to the event. I’m sure you can understand why Mr. Flemming felt that way, and appreciate that he did try to get Mr. Keefer to attend.
The police did their job which was to keep 2 factions of people with very different views on the issues apart to prevent any possible problems, and I find it somewhat hard to believe that those on the CUPE side came with open minds as they carried signs with slogans clearly directed against the peacekeepers and in favor of those who have made lawlessness a daily event in Caledonia.
I listened to all of the speakers and not one of you spoke about or acknowledged the very real suffering of Caledonia residents over the past 3 years. No mention of the children on the sixth line road who have no policing because the Native occupiers of DCE told the OPP to stay away, no mention of Sam Gualtieri who was beaten nearly to death in the home he was building for his daughter in September 2007, and no acknowledgement that anyone from the native side has committed any wrongs.
CANACE has been transparent in the things we’ve done since the group was formed and I suspect the Peacekeepers will do the same.
you may have an open heart Mr. Lauckner, but you climbed onto a bus full of people who opposed the enforcement of the law in a place where it is desperately needed.
Jeff