Minister not read Marshall decisions in full
The fisheries minister has not read the Marshall decisions.
At least, Bernadette Jordan hasn't read all of the two of them (each is about 10 pages).
“I have not read it in its entirety, no,” replied Bernadette Jordan when asked by Conservative MP Rob Moore on Wednesday whether she'd read the two Supreme Court of Canada decisions.
Those decisions, the 1999 R vs. Marshall and a clarification issued by the court three months later known as Marshall II, coined the term “moderate livelihood” and through their interpretation of the 18th-century treaties between the Mi'kmaq and English Crown acknowledged the right upon which Jordan is supposed to be conducting negotiations with First Nations seeking increased access to the fishery.
They also stated limitations on the right.
Jordan made the admission while speaking to the House of Commons standing committee on fisheries and oceans. It has been tasked with answering the question of how to implement the Mi'kmaq treaty right to a moderate livelihood.
The same committee was asked the same question under a Liberal government 20 years ago.
It made 28 recommendations that included providing access to the fishery by buying up and transferring commercial licences, training aboriginal enforcement officers and that a “co-operative, co-management and community-based approach to management of fisheries should be promoted.”
Both that committee and the Supreme Court of Canada were firm, however, that ultimate authority to manage the fishery fell to the fisheries minister.
“The Court did not hold that the Mi'kmaq treaty right cannot be regulated or that the Mi'kmaq are guaranteed an open season in the fisheries,” reads the Supreme Court clarification known as Marshall II.
“... The Court was thus most explicit in confirming the regulatory authority of the federal and provincial governments within their respective legislative fields to regulate the exercise of the treaty right subject to the constitutional requirement that restraints on the exercise of the treaty right have to be justified on the basis of conservation or other compelling and substantial public objectives.”
The chair of that committee in 2000, P.E.I. Liberal MP Wayne Easter, is not on the current committee tasked with reanswering the same question.
Last week, he told CBC'S Island Mornings radio show that commercial fishing seasons are “critical to managing the resource itself.”
Asked about those comments Wednesday, Jordan said Easter had a right as an MP to be “vocal” about his opinions.
But she did not directly answer questions on whether she would demand First Nations fish within established commercial seasons.
She also didn't answer direct questions about whether she would support a separate First Nations management authority for a moderate livelihood fishery.
“First Nations have a right to a moderate livelihood fishery. I am working to implement that right,” said Jordan when asked who would manage the fishery.
“I don't know how much more clear I can make that.”
Marshall II stated that while it acknowledged Donald Marshall's treaty right to catch and sell eels outside of a commercial season, the “resulting acquittal cannot be generalized to a declaration that licensing restrictions or closed seasons can never be imposed as part of the government's regulation of the Mi'kmaq limited commercial ‘right to fish'.”