The effect of earlier confrontations with natives -- particularly at Ipperwash and Oka, was to terrify Ontario's government into a state of near paralysis.**********
Premier Dalton McGuinty is a man heavily disposed towards confrontation avoidance. His solution to potential conflict is often to try and buy off the other party, with juicier employment contracts, for instance, or, as in this case, by buying up much of the land at dispute and letting the natives have the run of it.
The McGuinty government's approach to native problems is to do as little as possible and hope it goes away.
Not surprisingly, that has done little to dissuade natives from further confrontations.
RELATED: "We don' need no steenkin' law."
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