DFO committee makes sweeping recommendations

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A panel created by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) has concluded that the fall lobster fishery conducted by the Burnt Church First Nation is a threat to lobster stocks. The report recommends that all parties in the region share in the spring fishery and that the federal government should take drastic action to bring peace and stability to the region.

"Science is on the side of the non-Native fishers on the conservation issue, so are the courts, which have made conservation and the impact on other communities sharing the resource key considerations in working out agreements. If that were not enough, the virtual certainty of further social unrest should be sufficient to bring about a change in course. It would be unfortunate, if administrative expediency resulted in the criminalization of whole communities of normally law-abiding citizens," the report states. "The panel firmly believes that the situation has been allowed to deteriorate to the point where there is an urgent need to wipe the slate clean in order to allow for a fresh start."

The Panel on Community Relations-former New Brunswick First Nation chief Roger Augustine and Guy Richard, former chief justice of New Brunswick's Court of Queen's Bench-assessed the relationships in Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal communities in the Miramichi Bay area. Their report was released in mid-April. The panel was expressly precluded from addressing the question of treaty rights.

"We sent letters to every licensed fisher in the area inviting them to talk with us and giving them a full description of the mandate. We had a secretariat phoning individuals and encouraging them to meet the panel. The results exceeded our expectations. More than 150 individuals and groups answered our call," the report reads. "We had the privilege of listening to the views of citizens, fishers and women's groups in both communities. We also heard from First Nations Elders and law enforcement officers, RCMP officers, DFO personnel, representatives from the Miramichi Chamber of Commerce and the local members of parliament and provincial legislature, and municipal councils in the region."

The panel members concluded the problem in the region "runs much deeper than lobster fishing and conservation."

"The non-native communities view the situation strictly as a fisheries management problem. They are concerned that their livelihood will be threatened if a second fishing season is introduced in Lobster Fishing Area 23. Over time and with effective enforcement measures, they learned that conservation pays," the panel members concluded. "Lobster is now the principal source of income for professional fishers in this district. Other species round out what most would call a 'moderate living.' For them, conservation means a ban on lobster fall fishing in the Miramichi area."

But they noted that the Burnt Church First Nation sees an opportunity to use the Sparrow and Marshall rulings "as strategic bargaining tools to gain the maximum political autonomy possible."

"Thus, on the one hand, francophone and anglophone fishers are not willing to jeopardize the resource to accommodate righting of past wrongs done to the First Nations people no matter how understanding they may seem. Non-Native fishers generally don't feel individually and personally responsible for the actions of Canadian authorities over the years. The most they are willing to concede is that Native fishers, who have a license to fish, are welcomed to do so on the same terms as they enjoy," the report states.

The panel concluded that some effort must be made to bring the two sides together. They conducted a detailed socio-economic analysis using census 1996 data. The analysis revealed serious disparities between the Native and non-Native communities.

Lloyd Augustine, a keptin or traditional leader of the Mi'kmaq Grand Council had harsh words for the report.

"My problem with it is to achieve peace, why do we as Indian people hav to give up what is rightfully ours?" he asked. "They're not asked to give up anything; we are. We're asked to give up our fall fishery. We're asked to subject ourselves to fishery policies, their rules, regulations as a nation that's always claimed we haven't given up any of our sovereignty over our territory which is unceded. Our treaty rights, that's pretty well all vanishing. We're expected to pretty well give that all up."

Attempts to get a response to the report from the minister of Fisheries and Oceans were unsuccessful.