Clearwater deal inspires Mi’kmaq pride
Indigenous people in N.S. celebrate ‘most positive thing to happen to us’
ST. PETER’S, N.S.— Bernadette Marshall beams in contagious fashion across a table over a cup of tea in a small restaurant as she reminisces.
“I remember how my grandfather would say to me, ‘We’ve come a long way, Baby.’ And he would say it in Mi’kmaq.” She pauses, smiles. “I feel just so positive for the future.”
“It’s so positive. I can’t find a negative yet.”
Marshall, a 62-year-old mother of four, moved back two decades ago to the Potlotek First Nation in Cape Breton, where she was born and raised. In this small reserve community — some 750 people settled in small houses and a few businesses around the highway near the shores of Bras d’Or Lake — she’s a fixture.
Need someone’s number? She’s probably got it in her phone. Got no place to stay in Potlotek? She’ll open the doors of her home. That’s her way. That’s the Mi’kmaq way, she says.
Right now, she’s talking about an economic sea change for the Mi’kmaq, a critical juncture of events and timing that may alter their fortunes forever.
That’s all well and good, she says, but she believes the best thing coming out of the First Nation’s budding progress is a little more intangible and a lot more important than money. It’s pride.
It’s pride that causes the catch in her throat as she sits over a cup of tea at the Cosy Corner restaurant in nearby St. Peter’s, pride that causes tears to well in her eyes when she talks about the future of her people.
And it’s pride that lights up her face later, at the St. Peter’s wharf, as she looks over the half-dozen or so boats that make up the Potlotek moderate livelihood fishing fleet.
This month’s deal for Clearwater Seafoods Inc., in which the seafood giant was acquired by a coalition of Mi’kmaq bands and a specialty food company, marks a bold step in both the industry and the business world for the Indigenous communities involved.
Marshall says she believes it is creating opportunity and hope in present and future generations of Mi’kmaq — and that it, along with the burgeoning Mi’kmaq modest livelihood fishery, represents for many the dawning of a new era of economic independence.
It’s what many would describe as a game-changing moment, and it comes at a critical juncture in the seascape of the East Coast fishing industry, as tensions remain high over Mi’kmaq attempts to establish their Supreme Court of Canada-endorsed treaty fishing rights.
“This is the most positive thing that’s ever happened to us,” says Marshall.
The $537-million deal, the cost of which was basically split between the group of bands and their commercial partner, has launched the Mi’kmaq into the upper echelons of the global seafood industry.
Premium Brands and the coalition of seven bands — six Nova Scotian and one in Newfoundland — will assume 50-50 ownership of Clearwater. The communities will create a subsidiary company 100 per cent owned by the coalition, which will own all of Clearwater’s Canadian seafood fishing licences. Those licences, however, will continue to be fished by Clearwater’s existing fleet.
Essentially, that means business as usual for Clearwater following the acquisition, except with a different ownership structure, and 50 per cent of profits flowing to Premium Brands, with the other 50 per cent split evenly between the communities.
The revenue will mean differ
ent things for different First Nations. Clearwater’s total sales for 2019 topped $616 million, for earnings of $52.8 million. Membertou First Nation — one of the lead bands in putting the Clearwater deal together — posted revenues of $67 million for 2019. On the other hand, Potlotek’s total revenue for 2019 was less than a third of that, at $20 million.
It also means, in the future, more jobs and more opportunities for more Mi’kmaq as Indigenous workers get a chance to learn the ins and outs of the trade from one of the continent’s most successful seafood companies.
Marshall, who is a vice-president of the Nova Scotia Native Women’s Association, has been watching the fortunes of her Potlotek band, located about three and a half hours north of Halifax, since she returned 20 years ago.
Pride, she says, can be cyclical. And she’s witnessed an ebb over those past 20 years, one that’s only relatively recently begun to be reversed.
“I’ve seen guys and young girls walk around with their heads down. And they don’t want to even speak Mi’kmaq; they don’t want to learn because they’re ashamed to speak the language. They’re ashamed to be native. That hurts me when I see them.
“The moderate livelihood (fishery) and the Clearwater deal — that’s going to instil so much pride. And that’s my prayer. I pray every night. I pray to the Catholic Church; I pray to the Creator. I pray every way. I want our people to be proud of who they are.”
She remembers herself and others like her being too insecure to go to university, when they were of that age. Now she sees Mi’kmaq doctors, accountants, teachers … even senators and MPs. Those are the people, she believes, who open the eyes and aspirations of a new generation.
“Look at me, as a native person,” she says. “I’ve been
stripped of my language. They took us away to residential schools. They destroyed our homes, they destroyed our farmlands, they took away our fishing boats. They took our identity, and now, we’re getting it back. So much pride is coming back to us. At last.”
“And here we are today, we’re part owners of a billion-dollar empire … They’re going to look at Mi’kmaw people so much differently than they did maybe 10 or 20 years ago.”
That may be understating the issue, said Mohammad Rahaman, the Canada Research Chair in International Finance and Competitiveness at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax.
“This is the single largest investment by an Indigenous group in Canada in the fisheries business,” he said. “It is basically catapulting the First Nations of Canada to a major player in the global seafood industry. And that, to me, is a tectonic shift in the landscape of the seafood industry.”
The partnership with Premium Brands and the acquisition of Clearwater give the Mi’kmaq bands — already familiar with the harvesting portion of the seafood trade — an opportunity to learn about the processing and distribution part of the industry, said Rahaman. And that, over time, would lead to more jobs for First Nations people within the various parts of the business.
For the Mi’kmaq communities involved in the Clearwater acquisition, it’s part of a longterm path toward economic independence.
Chief Mike Sack of the Sipekne’katik First Nation said the deal means, first and foremost, more employment and more opportunities for band members in the industry, more chances for Indigenous people to learn the trade and the development of different streams of income.
What it does not mean is that the cash spigots will be opening
up immediately and showering the bands with money.
“Our main focus is on establishing our rights-based fisheries,” said Sack, whose band in September launched the province’s first moderate livelihood fishery. “I see this as diversity. We’re working on our own fishery, which is more short-term, (the Clearwater deal), that’s long-term; that will come into play in a few years down the road that will help with economic development.
“Ideally, I want our community to do well enough so that money goes back to the community members, but that’s going to take time, because we’re so underfunded.”
For most of the coalition bands, any money that comes in the short-term, said Sack, will likely go toward housing, schooling and other band programs.
The bands haven’t been at a developmental standstill. Still, most of the First Nations involved are running relatively small budgetary surpluses, which makes planning new projects more difficult. The additional money would be welcome.
In Potlotek, for example, where Chief Wilbert Marshall says there are 163 people waiting for housing, work has already begun on a new subdivision, and a new medical centre is in the works. But income from the new deal could accelerate the pace of that infrastructure development.
“We’re starting to see progress here now,” he said “We never had a gas station before. We’ve built a greenhouse; we’ve got a high school here. We have the roads paved. We’re fixing all the houses.
“There’s lots of progress. But we need more money to do it also.”
Part of the difficulty for Mi’kmaq chiefs such as Marshall and Sack is that at such an early stage, with a global economy compromised by the COVID-19
pandemic, it’s difficult to forecast the economic impact of the Clearwater acquisition.
For example, Clearwater’s earnings through the first three quarters of 2019 were $33.8 million. Through the first three quarters of 2020 — largely due to the coronavirus pandemic — the company posted a loss of $3.8 million.
As well as a depressed global economy, and the usual uncertainties of a resource-based industry, there are the complications of meshing with a new corporate partner — Premium Brands — to consider.
“I don’t think that there’s enough information out there for myself — as somebody that’s studied fisheries for many decades — to really know what this might mean in terms of fisheries in this area, or in terms of the economy. It’s early days yet,” said Prof. Tony Charles at Saint Mary’s University.
“It’s an amazingly complex situation,” said Charles, a professor at the Sobey School of Business and acting director of the university’s School of the Environment. “The Clearwater purchase adds to the confusing nature of what’s changing in fishery scene in Nova Scotia at the moment.
“What (the Clearwater deal) actually means to individual First Nations will depend on how that coalition interacts with Premium Brands. And it will depend on how the seafood business goes in the future, because there’s a risk factor here, with any kind of acquisition.”
Bernadette Marshall has thought about the risks involved about the Clearwater deal, about the money involved and about the possible downsides. But she keeps coming back to the positives. And to her mind, the Clearwater acquisition paints a far rosier picture for the Mi’kmaq than there has been in a long time.
“This is the first step of wonderful things to happen to the Mi’kmaw people.”