Trudeau pledges investigation into mistreatment
DARTMOUTH — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was in Halifax for a housing announcement.
He had to talk over the drumming of First Nations protesters.
Afterwards, he dealt with why they were there — accusations made by two Mi’kmaq fishermen who were stranded by fisheries officers and forced to walk in their sock feet for hours.
The prime minister called the allegations very troubling and required a full investigation.
“The minister of fisheries is looking into this directly," Trudeau said in Dartmouth on Tuesday where he announced a $6-billion national housing fund. About two dozen Mi’kmaw protesters showed up at the event, shouting at the prime minister to honour the treaties that allow First Nations to fish.
Trudeau said there are processes and protocols in place that enforcement officers must follow “and we need to make sure they were properly followed."
“As the facts are made available, there will need to be consequences,” he said.
CBC reported the two men, from Eskasoni and Membertou, were detained by federal fisheries officers last week while fishing elvers at night on a river in Shelburne County. The fishery was closed last month because of rampant illegal fishing. Mi’kmaw fishers have a treaty right to fish the species.
They say the fisheries officers dropped them off at a gas station outside Liverpool and confiscated their hip-wader boots and cellphones. They said they wrapped their feet in duct tape and plastic bags and tried to walk to the town in search of a hotel room.
The Assembly of Nova Scotia Mi’kmaw Chiefs issued a news release a day after the incident calling this “absolutely unacceptable and inhumane.
“DFO understands our people’s distrust with their department and these appalling interactions between DFO and our harvesters will not be allowed to continue. This is not an isolated incident and shows how the systemic racism within DFO and the federal government must be addressed,” Chief Wilbert Marshall, co-lead of Fisheries for the Assembly of Nova Scotia Mi’kmaw Chiefs said in the release.
There was a second protest outside a DFO office in Dartmouth. The Assembly is also calling for an emergency meeting with the minister of fisheries.