I take issue with one of the allegations lobbed by this writer – that the police are using race as a principle upon which to decide when to enforce the law in Caledonia. This is a refrain that has been heard time and time again, and one against which the police have been unable to defend themselves. While I am not pro (or anti) police I do think some of the more vocal residents of this area have worked hard to unfairly characterise the police as racist – or more accurately, to characterise the exercise of police discretion as somehow based on considerations of race and not on some important societal goal or value. The oft-repeated allegation has been that the OPP is conducting “race-based” policing. Rage and anger naturally ensues.
The story goes like this: The police have failed to enforce the law against the Natives on the former Douglas Creek Estates (DCE) land. The police have not failed to enforce the law when non-Native activists, and others, have attempted to enter this same disputed land. The logical conclusion, so the story goes, is that the police are using reverse discrimination to prefer the interests of Natives over that of non-Natives.
There are at least three problems (two logical and one systemic) with this familiar fable.
First, the person alleging race-based policing is making a leap of faith. He or she is assuming decisions that result in the seemingly different treatment of different peoples must be based on race. The person making this argument assumes the police are making decisions based predominantly on race, to the near total exclusion of justice, security, peace, public order, or other operational considerations.
Second, this allegation treats correlation (the fact that particular decisions seemingly correlate with race) as causation (the motivations or cause of the treatment). This slight-of-hand confuses one into believing that race, and not some other factor, is the cause of the manner of policing, rather than the correlative result.
The third problem is more worrisome. This allegation, based on a party trick and unsupportable assumption, has served to sour relations between the residents of Haldimand and police. People have lost faith in the men and women who, every day, work hard to protect our communities, and right wrongs.
A more likely story, and one that I think has been born out in the process and result of the last six years, is that the police have been charged with the thankless and difficult task of standing between two warring groups. In that middle ground, police have had to take into consideration, in conjunction with the goal of law enforcement, the greater goals of security, peace, stability, and operational viability; all while also trying not to derail a slow-moving political process of negotiation and discussion. In that effort to promote these grander goals and processes, the police have, it appears, acted diligently to maintain an admittedly less-than-ideal status quo pending resolution of this dispute through negotiation.
This more likely story takes into consideration the fact that (unless you are a conspiracy theorist) most police officers are fair-minded individuals who chose policing in order to do good – not evil. It also takes into consideration the fact that police officers are like you or me and therefore not likely to be motivated by the goal of reverse-discrimination. It also takes into consideration the fact that police officers in Caledonia are operating in a difficult situation – many competing values and goals are in play – and making difficult operational decisions about how to maintain law, order, peace and promote resolution to a problem that, in 350 years, has yet to be solved, makes for tough working conditions.
We should all, therefore, take issue with the allegation that the OPP are engaged in race-based policing. It is too facile an explanation to a very difficult and complex issue; its treats police as vapid politically correct monkeys and it takes us for fools. It is towards this uncritical allegation, and not towards the police, that our collective rage and anger should, naturally, be directed.
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