Reflection

 

According to the Gulf of Georgia Cannery museum in Steveston, the indigenous peoples around the Fraser river called white settlers ‘xwelítem’, meaning ‘hungry people’.  The early white settlers were unable to feed themselves from the land, and thus they relied on the local indigenous communities to sustain them.  The more I learn about our fisheries management, the more it sounds like we are still the same “hungry people” who have not learned to properly sustain ourselves of the land.

Throughout this class we have heard countless examples of fisheries management failures in Canada, but the class with Megan Bailey drove home concrete community-based ramifications of these ongoing failures.  I found it helpful to take a deep dive into one particular case study for a whole class: the lobster fishery in Nova Scotia.  Even though the lobster populations seem to be doing ok, examining this fishery and the relationships between indigenous communities, commercial fishermen, and the DFO was the perfect example to highlight re-occurring problems facing Canadian-indigenous fisheries management.

I find it profoundly alarming that indigenous fishing rights are so contested. In class we discussed examples where indigenous fishermen are taken to the supreme court (even after the Marshall decisions).  Amanda’s words have stuck with me: “it is disgraceful that indigenous people have to go to the supreme court just to have their rights recognized”.  This point has really shaken my confidence on our justice system.  I find it very frightening that someone can be arrested for legal activities, and still have their rights ignored throughout the lower levels of the justice system.

I am truly perplexed about how the DFO decided to say the indigenous communities in Nova Scotia are not allowed to fish lobster outside of the commercial season, when this is a perfect reflection of the Marshal decisions.

As Dr. Bailey put it: “a right is a right”.  One cannot only implement rights when it is convenient, they are written into law so that they are upheld and protected at all times.   If the DFO or citizens take issue with this right, then they can move to have the right changed, but for the time being it is still a right, and I do not understand how there is any wiggle room for the DFO to ban the Indigenous fisheries outside of the commercial season.

I ended up having a very interesting conversation with my grandpa about this.  My grandpa was a lawyer, and I was asking him when and why a supreme court ruling can be overturned.  He explained that there needs to be a substantial change in the underlying facts upon which the ruling was made.   When it comes to the Marshal decisions, I do not see how anything substantial has changed about the situation since 1999.  As it stands now, there is no solid data to show that the lobster fishery is in danger.

How can the DFO move to infringe on the rights of indigenous fisheries without publishing any data validating their motives?  Forget Two-Eyed seeing, in this case the DFO appear to have abandoned one-eyed seeing and any vision into the community fisheries at all!

All this being said, I understand why the commercial fishermen are uncomfortable with indigenous lobster fisheries.  I think it would be challenging for anyone to watch the boats go out and profit off something that is forbidden for you to benefit from.  (Keeping in mind, the indigenous communities have watched settlers pillage their oceans for 300 years).   Dr. Bailey explained it well: the commercial fishermen are concerned about their livelihood, not necessarily the state of the lobster stock.  It makes them (understandably) uncomfortable to watch others take the lobster before they can.

I have been exposed to many fishermen in in my lifetime, and I have never once heard a fisherman blame reduced catch per unit effort on their own fishing strategies.  Every fisherman I have ever talked with manages to blame another group for their dwindling catches.  In Nova Scotia, I imagine it is the same way: watching the indigenous fisheries makes them an easy target to blame for their perceived reduction in lobster catch.

 

With the history of the Cod crash and its ongoing societal impact, I understand why commercial fishermen are eager criticize the indigenous fisheries extending past the commercial fishing regulations.

The past few weeks of this class have made me reflect upon my experiences and relations with indigenous communities in BC.  My grandparents lived on a ranch in the interior of BC, and I would live up there for a few months every year until I was 21.  The ranch was near Cache Creek, and in close proximity to a few native bands.  The overwhelming sentiment in the ranching community was underlying hostility towards the indigenous communities.  Ranchers were frequently complaining about indigenous issues (such as access rights to ceremonial sites), and ranchers regularly blamed community issues on the indigenous communities.  For example, in 2017 the Elephant Hill Fire destroyed 191,865 hectares in the area (including most of my grandparent’s ranch), and the community was quick to blame the local native band for starting it.  The widely accepted rumour was the fire started because the indigenous community was burning trash in the middle of summer.  This turned out to be entirely untrue, but the rumour still circulates within the ranching community.

Now what is interesting: despite this bias against the indigenous community, one-on-one relationships are entirely different.  The same ranchers will promote negative generalizations about the indigenous community, but when it comes to their relationship with a specific indigenous individual, they treat them with the highest respect, just like any other neighbour.  It was fascinating to me to see that some racist ranchers had best friends in the indigenous community.  These friendships made them much more understanding of certain indigenous issues. The only opportunity for discussions between ranchers and indigenous people was at rodeos, so the only indigenous people ranchers spoke highly of were all involved in the rodeo somehow.  If only there were more community events for both groups to make friends!

Carrying this over to the fisheries in Nova Scotia, I think it is critically important to have opportunities for discourse between commercial fisheries, indigenous communities, and the DFO.   I very much understand the commercial fishermen’s point of view, but it is impossible to rationalize their point to view if one has a full understanding of indigenous issues and rights.

It is my hope that Two-Eyed seeing will be implemented as discussed in Dr. Reid’s paper.  More than anything else, I think the key to mutual understanding in many indigenous fisheries issues is more opportunity for dialogue between indigenous communities, commercial fishermen, and the DFO.

This leads me to my follow up questions:

• I would like to learn more about success stories from around the world where there are opportunities for open communication between local communities, commercial fishers, and fisheries management. We touched an examples here and there but I would like to take a deep dive.
• Considering that historic knowledge is passed down verbally in indigenous communities, are shifting baselines more, or less of an issue for their management strategies?

As a closing remark, it appears to me that the DFO is uncomfortable with the idea of giving indigenous communities unlimited small-scale fishing rights.  These rights are well established in the Indian Act, the Fisheries Act, and have been tested repeatedly in the Supreme Court. Despite these clear rights, the DFO’s restrictions on the indigenous lobster fishery in Nova Scotia reveals the DFO’s unease.  But without releasing stock assessment data supporting their restrictions, what are they thinking?