Clara Gimenez-Delgado & Caroline Halley
Access our (almost) final version here
What’s the Story?
The last two decades of the 20th Century saw an exponential increase in Indigenous resurgence movements claiming the implementation and extension of what the government of Canada had called “Aboriginal Rights.” One of those concerned the right to fish and sell all traditionally harvested species within First Nations territories.
As a result of continuous litigations, in 1990 the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that Indigenous peoples fishing for food, social, and ceremonial purposes had priority over commercial fishing after demands of conservation had been met (Aboriginal Fisheries in British Columbia, Indigenous Foundations, UBC). A direct consequence of said ruling was the launch of the Aboriginal Fisheries Strategy (AFS) in 1992, with Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) overviewing it. Several projects followed the creation of the AFS, and collaboration between DFO and different Nations started. However, the accords and agreements had to be reached individually, nation by nation, and case by case, making Reconciliation efforts slow and frustrating for the communities.
Image from T’aaq-wiihak Fisheries https://taaqwiihakfisheries.ca