How to Support Mi’kmaq Fishers Asserting Treaty Rights in Nova Scotia

WHAT’S HAPPENING:

“I think it’s incumbent on the national government and (the Fisheries Department) to quickly pull together a meeting that brings all sides together to find a solution that the courts told us 21 years ago we needed to find, and that has to happen soon.” — Premier Stephen McNeil, Nova Scotia

Vehicle torched, lobster pounds storing Mi’kmaw catches trashed during night of unrest in N.S. : https://www.cbc.ca/1.5761468

Treaty of 1752, Article 4 reads, “It is agreed that the said Tribe of Indians shall not be hindered from, but have free liberty of Hunting and Fishing as usual…”

Destroying their equipment and stealing their catch is both a Treaty violation and a criminal offence.
— Jarvis Googoo (@JarvisGoogoo) October 14, 2020

Lobster catch destroyed, vehicle burned as tension rises over Indigenous fishery in N.S.: https://beta.ctvnews.ca/local/atlantic/2020/10/14/1_5144540.html

Violence and Arson over Fishery is a Failure of Government

And it continues tonight:

https://m.facebook.com/100002294959034/videos/3345228868896912/

I live in Ontario, have never been to Nova Scotia, nor am I Indigenous and I don’t eat lobster. But all the same I am furious about this entire situation. Mobs of white racist fishers are attacking Indigenous fishers, trespassing and destroying their property while RCMP stand around and do nothing more than turning their body cams off. These guys might as well be wearing white hoods and hammering burning crosses into the ground. 8

This is textbook systemic racism. And it is happening because the Government of Canada failed to do its job on the 21 years since the Supreme Court of Canada’s Marshall Decision. https://www.canlii.org/en/ca/scc/doc/1999/1999canlii665/1999canlii665.html

What ever happened to Canada’s vaunted rule of law? Mobs of white vigilantes are trespassing and destroying property.

It is up to the Federal Government DFO to announce that the Indigenous fishers are not breaking the law.

It is up to the Nova Scotia government to ensure the RCMP upholds thd law, which includes keeping the peace, preventing violence and arresting perpetrators.

If there are any non-racist white people in Nova Scotia, they need to get out and stand with their Indigenous neighbors.

Those of us who don’t live there can help in ways suggested in the list below, republished here to amplify the message.