Commercial fishermen protest what they say is native overfishing

Commercial lobster fishermen from southwestern Nova Scotia gathered outside three federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans conservation offices Thursday to rally against what they consider to be native overfishing.

“We’re just trying to put some pressure on DFO and government to enforce some laws that seem to be getting broken,” said Matthew Theriault, a 36-year-old lobster fisherman from Digby.

“There seems to be some fishing activity in a fishing area that’s closed. We just want them to clean it up.”

Theriault is not legally allowed to guide Sadie’s Sunrise, his lobster boat, into St. Mary’s Bay until the last week of November. He and the 100 or so like-minded protesters who gathered in Digby on Thursday are concerned that Indigenous fishing boats are hauling too many lobsters out of the same waters.

“We recognize the food fishery but from what everybody is seeing, they seem to be taking them to different pounds, they are not taking them to the band,” Theriault said of protests that also attracted a couple of hundred people to DFO offices in Meteghan and Tusket.

“They (native boats) don’t seem to be going as a food fishery. It seems to be more of a commercial fishery.”

Mike Sack, chief of the Sipekne’katik Band, one of seven different Mi’kmaq bands that have boats fishing in the area, said natives are entitled to go beyond the right to fish for food, social and ceremony as protected in a Supreme Court of Canada ruling. Sack said another Supreme Court ruling in the Donald Marshall case gives the Mi’kmaq a right to fish to support a moderate livelihood.

“We’re relying on the DFO and the RCMP to ensure our safety,” Sack said Thursday, following up on a band news release earlier in the week that asserted that the lobster caught is distributed to community members and provides for community feasts. The release said the band is discussing the implementation of the recognized treaty right to fish for a moderate livelihood.

“We are not the ones doing any wrong,” Sack said, adding that he is confident that the band can fish for whatever it wants, whenever it wants.

DFO does not agree.

“The food, social and ceremonial fishery is for communal use so the sale of that fish is contrary to regulation,” said David Whorley, DFO’S area director for southwestern Nova Scotia.

Whorley said the food, social and ceremony fishery for aboriginal harvesters is a rights-based fishery.

“That’s different from the commercial fishery, which is privileged and governmentally determined.”

Whorley is aware of protesting but he said he is not aware of any violence on the water or on the wharfs, despite statements from both native and commercial fishermen that they have been threatened by the other side.

Theriault, too, said he has not seen any violence.

“I have never been threatened but it is a very uneasy situation, that’s for sure,” Theriault said.