Impasse continues in New Brunswick

The law, as it stands right now, says they have to come out of the woods, but Aboriginal loggers in New Brunswick have refused.

The Micmac and Maliseet loggers who seized an opportunity to make a decent living in the unemployment-ravaged region after a provincial court judge ruled that Aboriginal people had the first right to log on Crown lands, say a subsequent court ruling which reversed that decision isn't enough to make them give up their businesses. They continue in defiance of the courts and the provincial government, and observers are predicting trouble, sooner or later.

Published reports say suicides are down and the standard of living is up in at least one Aboriginal community in New Brunswick and people are looking ahead with optimism. No one disagrees that the logging has given Aboriginal people a much-needed economic opportunity.

Logging started after the court ruling last fall and the positive effects in the communities are easy to see. But when a Court of Appeals decision on April 22 dismissed the lower court ruling as badly flawed and reversed its findings, out-going Premier Ray Frennette had the power to order an end to Aboriginal logging. Frennette's initial comments that the loggers had "days not weeks" to get out of the woods were met with promises of resistance from the loggers. An impasse ensued. Chiefs in the province are willing to negotiate a deal with the government. The new premier, Camille Theriault, is willing to make a deal that will see some benefits for Aboriginal people. But the loggers say, "No thanks."

Some observers say the New Brunswick logging in defiance of the law is similar to the tobacco boom on Mohawk territories in Ontario and Quebec in the early 1990s.

Chief Robert Levy of the Big Cove First Nation is a central figure in the logging talks. He has been involved in the discussions between First Nations and the province and in discussions with the five Aboriginal political groups which represent the 15 reserve communities in the province. He suggested the comparison between logging and cigarette sales isn't exactly accurate, although there are businessmen reaping large individual profits by virtue of their people's collective rights.

"It's almost like that. Not quite," he said. "Because we do also have a lot of our grassroots, ordinary people that are finally in our rights. We've known all along that we've never given up title to the land. And when it was recognized, it was such a. . . a celebration, I guess. It took a while for them to understand the full impact, and so some of them jumped on right away and went into the woods right away. But it took a month or two before the others realized the potential, and, sure enough, they went in the woods after. As we stated then, it's going to be impossible to get the Natives out of the woods now because they've had, finally, a taste of what it means to be able to go out and contribute to your community, your family."

Chief Levy said he believes the province knows it's only a matter of time until the courts rule that his people have the right to log.

"We know the government knows we're right, and that's why they're scrambling all over trying to give us some kind of a deal," he said. "They've already made us an offer."

The chiefs told the province the first offer was insulting. The 15 First Nations plus the Aboriginal Peoples Council (which represents off-reserve residents in the province) were offered a total of 125,000 cords per year.

"We told them that offer was an insult. That's only 7,600 cords per community, and we look at some non-Native communities, families, for example. We know of one sub-licensee, a family, that gets 50,000 cords."

Levy and the other chiefs have formed a coalition that will submit a counter-proposal. Levy said the economic activity that was born as a result of the first court decision has had incredibly positive results.

"You wouldn't think that such a, I can't say a simple thig, but such an event could make such a drastic turnaround. But in my community, anyway, and I can only speak for Big Cove, it did. My God, we were going through such a really bad time here for a few years. A while back, my people were just killing themselves left and right, for no reason. But when this happened, when they started to realize that they could go out and work and not just sit around and do nothing and get despaired, they were able to contribute and that made a big difference. It certainly changed the morale and changed the whole atmosphere in my community and in the time since last November, well, we did have one suicide, but what is most important is the attempts are down, drastically down."

After a weekend meeting in mid-May, Levy is confident that all Aboriginal political groups in the province will support the coalition that plans to negotiate with the province. The chief knows he'll have to deal with the loggers even if he can get an acceptable deal with the province.

"We do have a few ambitious businessmen," he said.