Twenty-ninth annual Daniel O’Hanley Memorial Lecture set for Feb. 7

The Latin American Mission Program (LAMP) is presenting the 29th annual Daniel O’Hanley Memorial Lecture on Sunday, Feb. 7, 2 p.m.

Due to COVID 19 restrictions, the lecture will be online. The link to register for the webinar is: https://www.eventbrite. ca/e/136220961563.

The topic is Indigenous Fishery: Rights, Resilience, and Revival. It is a timely subject, given the recent fishery conflicts which have arisen which reveal a lack of understanding of the rights of indigenous people, the treaties and the definitive and irrefutable court decisions over the years.

The joint lecturers are Andrea Reid, a citizen of the Nisga’a nation (British Columbia), and her spouse, John-Francis Lane. They live in British Columbia. Both were brought up in West Prince, P.E.I., with close ties to the Lennox Island First Nation.

Reid is assistant professor with the University of British Columbia’s Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries. She also leads the Indigenous Fisheries Research Unit. Lane is a conservationist with a B.Sc. in Natural Resource Conservation from the University of British Columbia. He is currently pursuing a Master of Science in conservation science.

Lane will begin the lecture by situating the audience on traditional, ancestral and unceded Indigenous territories. He will speak about the need for education for productive dialogue, indicating that many people lack the tools/ language to have fruitful conversations. He will present the context of Maritime Mi’kmaq rights, legal rights and early settlement.

Reid will speak about Indigenous knowledge systems, active and sustainable management. She will present the history of Indigenous fisheries showing how the Fisheries Act made way for the dispossession and criminalization of Indigenous fishers. She uses a case study of Pacific salmon in B.C., which brings out some of the larger truths. She will lay out the critical Supreme Court of Canada decisions that shape Indigenous fisheries realities today.

She will speak about current conflicts like Sipekne’katik (Nova Scotia) arising from failing to reconcile ways of knowing and being. She will suggest some essential resources/readings/ tools to guide the audience beyond this talk.

As is the custom in the Daniel O’Hanley Memorial Lecture, a local person knowledgeable on the topic will give a short response to the guest presenters’ presentation. to connect the lecture to local realities. The responder for this event is Judy Clark, a respected Mi’kmaq Elder, a member of Abegweit Mi’kmaw Nation and Elder in Residence of the UPEI Mawi’omi Indigenous Student Centre.

Each year since Daniel O’Hanley’s death on July 3, 1991, LAMP honours him and all Islanders by presenting the Daniel O’Hanley Memorial Lecture. O’Hanley was murdered in a botched robbery attempt. He is remembered for his courage and his deep commitment to social justice for all peoples.