Caledonia businesses move to sue police, Crown over barricades

With takeout and curbside pickup in place to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic, sales had just started to pick up at Shari Harding's Pita Pit franchise on Argyle Street in Caledonia.

And then the barricades went up.

We were getting back on our feet and then this happened," Harding said. Since the road closures started, our business is down 60 to 70 per cent year over year."

Harding is the representative plaintiff in a planned class-action lawsuit against the OPP and the province filed by Caledonia law firm Arrell Law LLP on behalf of businesses and residents who have suffered financially because of the ongoing McKenzie Meadows dispute.

We're inviting people to register with us and share their experiences," said lawyer Peter Murray, whose firm filed a notice of action at the Cayuga courthouse on Nov. 16.

He said his firm has heard from business owners who have seen sales slump and residents concerned that the standoff between the OPP and Six Nations land defenders is hurting their property value.

People don't want to come to Caledonia," Murray said, adding that police and government inaction has left residents and businesses as collateral damage."

Right now, all we've done is put people on notice that unless the matter gets resolved - and that's everyone's hope, obviously, that it's peacefully resolved and the barricades come down - that we will be moving forward with the action," said Murray.

Harding said Argyle Street is quiet now that Caledonia is no longer an option for day-trippers headed to Port Dover or commuters driving between Hamilton and Hagersville.

I would guess that up to 50 per cent of my business might also come directly off the reserve, and I basically have none," she said. We support Six Nations just like they support us. But we can't support each other if neither of us can get through."

Foxgate Developments, the company behind the planned subdivision on McKenzie Road that land defenders claim as unceded Haudenosaunee territory, will not be joining the lawsuit but is planning its own legal action.

William Liske, vice-president and chief legal officer, said he shares Caledonians' frustrations that police have not enforced the court injunctions ordering the Six Nations-led group to leave the McKenzie site and clear the roads.

Our hope is that the court proceedings will bring focus to the losses and damages suffered as a result of the inaction and failure to address the situation by all levels of government, both financial and emotional, and that the matter be taken seriously," Liske said.

OPP spokesperson Const. Rod LeClair declined to comment as the lawsuit is before the courts.

Murray sees a parallel between the current roadblocks and the barricades that went up 14 years ago during a dispute over the former Douglas Creek Estates lands on Argyle. He spent the past few years securing payments for some 200 Caledonia residents and businesses who shared a $20-million settlement from a similar class action suit filed in 2006.

Those payments were delayed when the lawyer who had been representing the plaintiffs misappropriated approximately $1.8 million of the settlement.

Harding has already let go half her workforce and is worried that she may have to close for good if the barricades stay up much longer.

This is not a solution to the problem for anybody. We just will not survive this," she said.

In a perfect world, (the lawsuit) would spur them to find a way to resolve this amicably without causing so much grief to the town - and before it's too late."

J.P. Antonacci's reporting is funded by the Canadian government through its Local Journalism Initiative. The funding allows him to report on stories about the regions of Haldimand and Norfolk.