For Indigenous fishers, it’s an uneasy calm amid N.S. dispute
SAULNIERVILLE, N.S.— Michael Thiebaux has been fishing for the past five weeks. That means he’s missed one-fifth of his baby daughter’s life.
Her name is Ursula, named after a sister who died. When he saw the ultrasound of his child, he cried tears of happiness, he says.
“She’s the light of my life, I’m telling you.”
She’s five months old now, and despite the video calls, it’s killing him to be away from her. But Thiebaux says he believes he’s fishing for her, and for his other children, and for their children after them.
Such sacrifices, he says, are the price of exercising Mi’kmaq treaty rights acknowledged by the Supreme Court of
Canada, and by the government of the day.
It’s been five weeks since the Sipekne’katik launched their self-regulated, moderate livelihood lobster fishery, and in that time Thiebaux has spent the majority his days at the wharf in Saulnierville, fishing with his mother and brother, and helping anyone else who needs a hand on the water, or off.
“I’m here to provide for my sons and daughters — to make sure they have food and clothes,” he said Monday at the Saulnierville wharf.
“I’m working for my children, to maybe make their lives better. And maybe help make — when they have kids — their children’s lives better, too.”
An emergency debate was being held Monday night in the House of Commons, in the wake of what has been five weeks fraught with conflict, in a dispute that stretches back much, much further.
On the day the Sipekne’katik launched their fishery, more than 50 non-Indigenous fishing boats formed a gauntlet in St. Mary’s Bay outside the Saulnierville wharf. In the days that followed, Sipekne’katik trap lines were cut, traps were destroyed and a boat was set afire.
This fishery “is a huge help for me and my family and the community,” Thiebaux said. “We’re trying to make a few dollars here, but we’re losing it with cut lines and lost traps.”
In the past week, the conflict has reached a more violent level.
Last Tuesday night, a lobster storage pound in New Edinburgh, N.S., had its water filtration system vandalized, and a van in the parking lot was set on fire. At another pound, an Indigenous fisher was trapped inside by a mob of about 200 nonIndigenous men, who hurled rocks and racial insults. Four days later, that pound was burned to the ground.
Over the weekend, after facing intense criticism for perceived inaction, the Mounties boosted their presence in the area.
Officers from across Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island have now made their way to the southwestern Nova Scotia coast. Police have now charged a man in the burning of the van in New Edinburgh, and another in the assault of Sipekne’katik Chief Mike Sack.
Federal Indigenous Services Minister Marc Miller said Monday that RCMP in the province hadn’t properly protected the Indigenous fishers.
“Indigenous people have been let down by the police, those who are sworn to protect them,” he told reporters in Ottawa. “The protection of people on both sides has to prevail, and clearly that has not been the case up until now."
On Monday, two RCMP cars with New Brunswick plates manned a checkpoint on the road leading up to the Saulnierville wharf. More checkpoints were set up in New Edinburgh, near the pound there.
It means that fishermen — for the time being at least — can concentrate on fishing.
“It takes a lot of weight off our shoulders,” Thiebaux said. “Everyone’s a little more relaxed.”
When he went out on Sunday, a Coast Guard vessel shadowed his boat as the fishers checked their lines.
“I felt comfortable with them out there watching,” he said. “They even moved their boat out of the way as we approached our buoy to let us get in there and do our work.”
Though his measured optimism is echoed up and down the Saulnierville wharf, fishers here say a more permanent fix is necessary. That will have to come from the federal government
Stuart Knockwood is the occupational health and safety manager for the Sipekne’katik band. In that capacity, he’s also looking after wharf — and sometimes water — security for band fishers. Knockwood is also a retired RCMP officer, who served in Digby County, where much of the lobster dispute has taken place.
As he watches the increased police presence settle things down, at least for the time being, he wonders why that response was so long in coming. Police response to large-scale events, he said, is based on evaluation of risk and how to mitigate that risk.
“The initial response (at New Edinburgh) was a little bit frustrating, because there was criminal activity that was transpiring in front of police and nothing was actually done,” he said. “I guess the police also felt outnumbered.”
“I still felt that — when I was an active police officer, if somebody committed a Criminal Code offence in front of you, you still have the powers of arrest,” he said. “That part of it was a little disheartening.”
But doing a proper risk evaluation might have alleviated that concern, he said. Given that there were boats on the water the first day of the Sipekne’katik fishery, and subsequent gatherings of 100 to 200 people from both sides, it was not unpredictable that police would be outnumbered.
“It was a reactionary response to something that could have been proactively defused if the resources were available earlier,” he said.
Those extra bodies are on the ground now, and it appears to have settled things temporarily. But Knockwood remains uneasy; police presence in the lobster dispute is a deterrent, not a permanent fix, and that deterrent will only last as long as there is the will for it.
“Are those resources still going to be there next week?” he asked.
“Because we’re still going to be fishing next week. Hopefully, they’re prepared to deal with something that goes on tomorrow, or in the next week. If something should arise, then I would hope that the resources would remain in effect until