A TRANQUIL, lobster-rich ISLAND is at the CENTRE of a border dispute with the U.S.
N.B. fishermen say ‘heavily armed’ U.S. patrol agents came onto boats looking for illegal immigrants
The last remaining land-border dispute between Canada and the United States has come to a boil again after U.S. patrol vessels reportedly stopped and boarded Canadian fishing boats in the disputed waters around Machias Seal Island, a windblown outcrop between New Brunswick and Maine.
Global Affairs Canada says it’s looking into the incidents, stressing that it considers the rich lobster fishing grounds to be sovereign Canadian territory — a position mirrored by the United States.
Rick Doucet, New Brunswick’s fisheries minister, told the National Post Wednesday that fishermen have informed him of “heavily armed” border patrol agents clambering onto lobster boats, saying they were looking for illegal immigrants.
“Is this overkill? Absolutely. Absolutely overkill,” said Doucet, whose riding includes Grand Manan Island, where the Canadian boats are based.
“It’s quite disturbing when you have fishermen on the water, doing their job, providing for their families … and they’re being harassed,” he said. “Canadian fishermen are being harassed by U.S. border patrol. As far as I’m concerned, it needs to stop immediately.”
A former American diplomat to Canada says the episodes late last month underscore the need for the two countries to settle their quarrel over the so-called “grey zone” surrounding the island before it erupts into violence.
“Border disputes don’t go away, they just fester and then something happens,” said Stephen Kelly, now a research scholar at Duke University. “Why wait until it becomes something uglier?”
The Grand Manan Fishermen’s Association said Wednesday it understands that the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol approached “a few” of its fishermen in the 165-square-kilometre disputed zone. “Our understanding is that this was part of a regular exercise being conducted along the U.S. marine border,” said the association in a statement.
The group said it’s working with the Canadian government to ensure their members can continue to use the fishery in a “normal manner,” noting that they have previously enjoyed a “respectful and cordial” relationship with their American counterparts.
A June 25 Facebook post by Laurence Cook, chair of the association’s lobster-fishing committee, was less diplomatic. The U.S. border patrol attempted to stop Grand Manan fisherman Nick Brown in the grey zone, he wrote.
“He informed them he was a Canadian vessel legally fishing in Canadian waters. Right answer Nick,” said Cook. “Typical American bullies. Proud of Nick not surprised to see the Americans trying to push people around.”
Cook said the U.S. patrol’s claim to be looking for illegal immigrants was “bulls—t.”
Brown could not be reached for comment.
John Babcock, a Global Affairs Canada spokesman, said the government continues to investigate the incidents “in Canadian waters,” partly by engaging with the American agencies involved.
“Canada’s sovereignty over the Machias Seal Island and the surrounding waters is long-standing and has a strong foundation in international law,” he said in a statement.
U.S. officials could not be reached for comment. But American patrol boats would themselves view the area as sovereign U.S. waters where “they could stop any boats that gave them concern,” said Kelly, once the deputy head of mission at his country’s embassy in Ottawa.
Indeed, it’s not for nothing the area is called the grey zone — gray zone to the Americans.
Tiny Machias Seal Island itself is no geopolitical trophy, though it is a unique home to scores of puffins. The dispute is over the ocean encircling it and the lobster lurking beneath the waves.
Fishermen from Maine and New Brunswick — and sometimes Nova Scotia — have generally competed peacefully for the resource, but tensions do flare. An American lobsterman had his thumb ripped off in 2007 while disentangling equipment during a clash with a Canadian.
“Somebody is going to get killed,” a Maine lobster official told Macleans magazine eight years later during another flare-up.
A Canadian-run lighthouse sits on the island and the puffin rookery is overseen by the Canadian Wildlife Service. But a succession of border accords from the 1783 Treaty of Peace — between the newly independent United States and Britain — up to a 1984 International Court of Justice case failed to resolve the fate of Machias Seal Island and its waters.
It’s possible that neither country sees it as a highstakes priority, said Kelly, but orderly access to the waters is “vital” to the two fishing industries.
He has argued that Canada and the U.S. should submit the disagreement to arbitration at the world court. Resolving the dispute doesn’t necessarily mean ceding the waters and island to one nation or the other, said Kelly.
The sovereignty issue could be sidestepped, for instance, in place of a formal agreement on sharing the area’s seafood stocks, he said.