Comment 60565

By Fred Street (anonymous) | Posted March 02, 2011 at 12:28:22

"Is there another explanation why people would come out in droves because a housing development was blocked?"

I think it has to do with the means by which it is blocked as much as the actors. If you're talking about an MOE appeal for an incinerator or OMB appeal for a WalMart, that's one thing; even if you're pro-sludge/pro-WalMart, you're only ever going to get so steamed. The community at large may even be able to forget that there is an ongoing dispute that is dragging on for weeks, months, years.

On the other hand, if you're talking about an occupation or barricade that gives rise to an enormously expensive application of police resources and results in heightened neighbourhood tensions and reduced quality of life, I suspect that the "battle lines" in an an ongoing dispute that is dragging on for weeks, months, years would be considerably more pronounced, regardless of who the actors in the drama are, whatever the details of their socioeconomic circumstance or ethnicity.

In the case of Caledonia, moreover, you're also talking about a relatively isolated population of (according to Wikipedia) around 44,000, in around 4,000 households – so when you've got up to 1,000 protestors combined on the front lines, you're touching a considerable nerve.

Imagine, for example, Hamilton's millenial Red Hill protests replayed with 6,000-11,000 protestors (pro and con) and imagine how public opinion, informed or otherwise, might have been even more inflamed than it already was given the comparatively small number of tree-huggers prepared to lay it on the line.

A complicated equation, and not one with simple answers.

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