Liaison tries to clear the muddied waters

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In an effort to put an end to the annual war of words over Aboriginal fishing rights in area rivers and the Bay of Quinte, the Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte have hired their first-ever Tyendinaga fishing and hunting liaison for the territory.

Brian Brant has been hired to get the fishing rights issue smoothed out, but it could be a difficult and frustrating task.

Brant asked Ontario's Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) 10 questions about reporting discrepancies found in public documents produced by the MNR. When Brant received no response to his inquiries, he released the questions to the press.

Brant thinks the MNR should explain why information in a number of its documents being used by the ministry contain conflicting information, some of which has been used to inflame non-Native resentment of an Aboriginal fishery.

For example, a ministry backgrounder dated Oct. 26, 2001, and used by the local media, reported that Aboriginal fishing (spear and gill netting) accounts for more than 50 per cent of the local harvest. A biological report dated April 26, 1999, prepared as a result of the mediation between the Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte and the MNR, reported that sports angling represented 88 per cent of the documented harvest. That same report said commercial and Aboriginal fisheries represented only six per cent each of the harvest.

The biological report also concluded that the ecology of the Bay of Quinte was changing due to the invasion of zebra mussels and the clarity of the water, but information provided by the MNR to non-Native fisheries infers that the problem is because of the Aboriginal fishery.

An MNR report concludes that the Aboriginal fishery accounts for 59 per cent of the fishing done in the Bay, yet no evidence is provided to support that conclusion. The MNR states that number resulted from an estimate by its enforcement staff of the catch of the Aboriginal gill net fishery.

"This is certainly bad science and extremely poor reporting," Brant said. "There are no numbers at all and the percentage is based purely on estimates."

The information provided by the MNR has resulted in detrimental coverage in the press, fuelling those who doubt the veracity of Aboriginal harvesting rights and traditions, even though those rights and traditions have been documented in the MNR's own Joan Holmes report of May 1999.

On behalf of the Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte, Brant has requested copies of the observations and enforcement records that the ministry used to determine the 59 per cent take. As of today, he has had no reply from the MNR.

Also in an attempt to stop the annual fight over fishing, Tyendinaga has hired a biologist who will start working in the next couple of weeks. This person will be responsible for gathering statistics on the take of the Aboriginal fishery and develop reports that can be used in dealing with the MNR.

Records of the fishing dispute go as far back as the 1920s when a 52-year-old lady named Eliza Sero had her handmade gill net taken away from her by non-Native fishers in the Bay, who also took the day's catch. Sero brought a complaint to court, asking for $1,000 damages, and won. Since then, particularly when Native spear fishers follow the spawning fish into waters in Belleville, there is a confrontation with the non-Native community.

Lisa Maracle, the Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte lands researcher, who is also working on the fishing issue with Brian Brant, expresses the view of many Tyendinaga Mohawks.

"I would like this issue to be resolved because this has gone on for about 100 years and I would like this to be over so it isn't passed down to my children."