Decades after the Supreme Court of Canada confirmed the inherent right of Indigenous people to hunt and fish, both for sustenance and a #ModerateLivelihood, the Canadian Government has yet to work with the First Nations Peoples signatory to the Peace and Friendship Treaties to establish a reasonable definition of what that means.
Chief Michael Sack said,
“We’ll define our own moderate livelihood. We’re not here to have anybody decide anything for us. We’ll decide as a Mi'kmaq nation and and move forward that way.”
Which is why the Sipekne'katik First Nation decided to establish its own fishery infrastructure, launched exactly 21 years after the SCC’s Marshall decision. Donald Marshall Jr.’s son Randy Sack received the first of the seven moderate livelihood licenses (50 tags each) issued by the Sipekne'katik Fishery to the Indian Brook band on September 17th. To date a total of 10 licenses, each allows the licensee to use a maximum of 50 traps. That is a total of 500 traps. Contrast that with the 900,000 traps used by the Commercial Fisheries.
The reaction by Commercial Fishers has been violent, and Indigenous fishers have faced threats and intimidation, been shot at with flare guns, had their gear stolen or vandalized, trucks and boats destroyed, and since a Lobster Pound that dealt with Commercial and Indigenous fishers was targeted, vandalized and destroyed, others are refusing to do business with them. Today Chief Sack got a Court Injunction to help protect his people and their Moderate Livelihood Fishery.
“Charles: I think a lot of people don’t fully understand what the Indigenous communities’ rights are. They don’t fully understand that the First Nations have rights that are different from the privileges to fish that non-Natives have.” — Hakai Magazine: Mi’kmaw Fishery Dispute Is Not About Conservation, Scientists Say
“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.
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
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.
WAYS TO SUPPORT MI’KMAQ ASSERTING THEIR TREATY RIGHTS IN DIGBY, NOVA SCOTIA (UNCEDED MI’KMA’KI)
What is Decolonization?Mi’kmaw Ancestral Relational Understandings and Anthropological Perspectives on Treaty Relations (Chapter 1): https://bit.ly/3cisdwY
UNITED NATIONS DECLARATION ON THE RIGHTS OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLES:
“Food Fish, Commercial Fish, and Fish to Support a Moderate Livelihood: Characterizing Aboriginal and Treaty Rights to Canadian Fisheries” by Douglas Harris & Peter Millerd:
