Showing posts with label Mark Vandermaas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mark Vandermaas. Show all posts

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

McHale And Vandermaas Get New Gig

Gary McHale, Mark Vandermaas, and co. have declared victory in Caledonia.  They've decided there's no point in hassling Indians anymore and moved on to greener pastures.  More particularly, London Ont., where they've been hassling...well, try and guess who they've been hassling. So far, though, the only people they've managed to get a rise out of come from the local business community:

Yesterday, a property owner asked me to move from in front of her business location. I know it’s not great to have a protest near your business, so I agreed to rotate my chosen place each day in order to try to accommodate her wishes, which I did.

Today, a second business owner came out to ask me to move my protest to the other side of the street.... I wasn’t even standing in front of his office, I was standing in front of a neighbouring building. He told me he was concerned that people would drive by and think someone was protesting against his business. I suggested all he had to do is tell his customers, ’By the way…the protest outside has nothing to do with me.’ When I reminded him that I wasn’t in front of his business, and suggested that no one was going to associate a guy wearing a blue beret and a UN flag with a protest against him, he told me my sign was too small and people driving by couldn’t read it, so they might think it was about him. It was all I could do to read his sign from the sidewalk, so I didn’t think that was going to be a problem. I told him I was rotating positions, and that free speech was why we live in Canada, but he wasn’t happy.

I’m not naming the business owners because I don’t want to focus on them, but the lesson (also learned in Caledonia, BTW) is unmistakable: when push comes to shove, don’t count on too many business owners to lead the charge to defend your Charter rights.


OK.  If you can't guess, go here.

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Tory Turmoil In Vaughan

Looks like a number of Ontario Conservatives have come out against Julian Fantino's soon-to-be-announced run for Tory MP in the upcoming Vaughan by-election. Their beef--his actions(or lack thereof) in regards to Caledonia and the ongoing clashes between non-natives and natives in the area:

Julian Fantino is a symbol of the Race-Based Policing practices in Caledonia that saw innocent property owners victimized with illegal occupations while OPP officers stood guard for those committing the crimes. His candidacy for the Conservative Party would symbolize that the party has fully embraced racialized policing and the dangerous ideology that innocent victims should be controlled, silenced and targeted for arrest as an alternative to enforcing the law against extremist groups. Julian Fantino has shown scarcely believable bias in favour of native criminals all the while using the full weight of his office to try to intimidate peaceful, law-abiding non-natives into compliance.

The two founders of Conservatives Against Fantino are Gary McHale and Mark Vandermaas. McHale especially is a rabble rouser as much as an activist--several members of the Neo-Nazi Northern Alliance appeared at one of their rallies, and his followers have occasionally described themselves as a militia. Although, that said, he has managed to win several small legal victories against the OPP.

Vandermaas writes a blog devoted the ongoing Caledonia standoff. I don't know what if any previous connection to the CPoC these two might have had before launching their website.

My opinion is that Fantino was in tough in Caledonia, and nothing he could have done would have been beyond criticism. He'll also almost certainly take the seat whatever these two guys get up to. But what the heck. My job here is to upset Conservatives.