New fisheries report raises hope for Indigenous communities, but angers industry
Global News
There are concerns the report titled 'Peace on the Water' is stoking anger in communities where lobster is a livelihood.
A Mi’kmaw lawyer from the community at the centre of a violent backlash over its self-governed lobster fishery says she’s “very hopeful” about a new Senate report that calls for the full implementation of Indigenous fishing rights.
“I was pleasantly surprised, to be honest,” said Rosalie Francis, a member of the Sipekne’katik First Nation in Nova Scotia.
But elsewhere in the province, the surprise has been significantly less pleasant. There are concerns the report titled “Peace on the Water” is instead stoking anger in communities where lobster is a livelihood.
Sipekne’katik launched a self-regulated fishery in 2020 in the waters of St. Mary’s Bay. It’s part of lobster fishing area 34 – or LFA 34 – a slice of coastline that’s home to one of the most lucrative fisheries in the country, where roughly one-fifth of all Canadian lobster is hauled each year.
But that prosperity has not always included Indigenous people.
When Sipekne’katik set traps with its own tags months before the 2020 fishing season began, there was at times violent backlash from the local community. A lobster pound was deliberately burned to the ground, and protesters formed an angry mob.
In response, Fisheries and Oceans Canada stepped up enforcement on the water and on wharves.
Francis said that left people “to go on the water and exercise their right as criminals.”
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