Venturing Forth - Pictou Landing First Nation Fisheries
Video
Video Script
On the northeastern side of Nova Scotia is Pictou Landing…a
small Mi'kmaq community of five hundred. It's here where the Scottish first
settled in Canada. Now in these waters, the Mi'kmaq are making their own kind
of history…
They are the first to develop a management plan for their
Aboriginal fishery…a plan that will leave a sustainable future for their youth.
Fishing season soon… got to get the traps ready and go over the gear.
AJ Francis is like any other young adult living in Pictou
Landing. They have been raised to fish the Atlantic Ocean.
Um, well almost everyone in my family fishes - like the whole reserve pretty
much fishes down here - I've been fishing with my dad since I was about 5 -
going out in the boat with him, all that, my whole life.
This is my dad's boat it needs some repairs hopefully get it ready for the
season and take over the gear.
Pictou Landing has benefited well from the Atlantic
fishery - new homes are being built and the economy is strong. But this wasn't
always the case. Prior to the 1999 Marshall decision, there were only six
commercial fishing boats in the community.
Now, there are eighteen…
Ian Thomas is classified as a "Marshall fisher." He is the
captain of one of the six communal boats owned by Pictou Landing First Nation.
I've never really had credit and if it wasn't for having a title of being a
ship's captain I probably wouldn't have been looked at all to be given credit
and ah it's been the same quite a few people down here. Not many people have
owned vehicles because there's just, it was…people wouldn't give aboriginals
opportunities to better themselves through financial gain.
These are our fishing grounds here we ah have, like I said, quite a few,
number of boats up in this region here. There's quite a bit of ice out here now
but the ice will go and we'll be all geared up for fishing come May so it's
exciting time of the year.
Ever since the fishery started I've seen like a big difference.
Wayne Denny used to fish… now he manages the community's
own successful fishery.
With the 18 gears that we received, we are looking at maybe 50 to 60 jobs
that were created.
In a 5-2 decision on September 17th, 1999, the Supreme
Court of Canada agreed Donald Marshall Jr. had a treaty right to fish for
sustenance and to earn a moderate livelihood…as guaranteed in the Peace and
Friendship treaties of 1760 and 1761.
In this decision, the Supreme Court confirmed for the
Mi'kmaq and Maliseet First Nations a treaty right to fish, as opposed to the
privilege to fish.
Further, it allowed the entire community to benefit…not
just a set number of independent commercial fishers.
Thirty-four First Nations in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick,
Prince Edward Island and the Gaspé region of Québec are affected by the Marshall
Decision.
It had a concern with some of our core guys because ah these core guys bought
their own boats and um paid - you know they paid for - their own insurance,
maintenance. I mean they paid thousands and thousands for their gears and to us
it was like we were putting their gears in jeopardy.
The Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) was mandated
by the federal government to help the First Nations access commercial fishing
opportunities.
When Marshall hit, we weren't issued tags for anything - everyone just went
out and fished and um it was a free-for-all.
With so many new traps vying for the lucrative
lobster…friction was brewing on the water…Aboriginal fishers, non-Aboriginal
fishers and DFO were all caught in the storm.
Initially there was a lot of fear you know, I mean like people that were in
the fishery thought that they were all going to have to leave the fishery and
you know all those types of rumours; so it did take time, it did take work, it
did take patience on behalf of the aboriginal community and it took all people:
the department, the non-aboriginal community and the aboriginal community
working together for a solution.
Eventually, fishing agreements were signed between DFO and
most of the Mi'kmaq and Maliseet communities of the Atlantic region.
DFO was mandated to train, and provide gear for new
fishers. These training sessions were held throughout the Maritimes. DFO
bought gear and retired fishing licences from longtime fishermen and transferred
them over to Pictou Landing First Nation -- 18 in total.
These boats will be going in the water soon.
Adam Paul is one of the Pictou Landing fishers who took
the training. He is now known as a "Marshall fisher" - or a fisher that has
been helped by the Marshall decision.
Well, after the Marshall decision I got a lobster licence so that benefited
my family into making more profit than I would as a deckhand and that way I can
employ a couple people and, you know, make some extra money for myself.
Now Adam Paul captains this boat.
No, there is no difference actually; except we don't have boat payments.
If you catch 10 000 pounds of lobster, you probably roughly keep $10,000 for
yourself until herring fishing, and for herring fishing you make couple of
thousand and that's for the rest of the year.
Right from the start when Marshall started we received all this gear and we
received all this money and we had meetings with chief and council. We knew that
(butt edit) we weren't gonna get money every year, every year, eventually it was
going to run out.
A plan was needed to ensure Pictou Landing would maintain
a healthy fishery.
Our management plan, I guess what's unique about it is we have we got the
community together, we hired a consulting company to come down. They organized
the community. They broke up the community, like they had fishermen, deckhands,
they had elders, they had chief and council, they had the youth…They had regular
meetings with all these people and they came to a consensus on what should be
done to the community.
Unlike the existing commercial fishery where lobster and
crab licences are held by individuals, the "right" to fish under Marshall is a
communal one for the benefit of the whole community.
Some of the fishermen are fishing right now and anything they make they keep
and there's a big concern with a lot of community members and that's identified
in the management plan to share the resource with other community members.
In the management plan, it states that fishermen will have
to pay a percentage of their catch to the community.
I just want the management plan to be put in place to ah make sure that we
don't fail, that our fishing keeps going, our boats are well-maintained, for the
fishermen to have pride in their boats instead of just letting them go and
letting them rot and have everybody just work together.
Good afternoon, Fisheries and Oceans. You're wondering when the lobster
season opens? Okay, well, presently it's due to open on the 30th of April.
I think anytime that you have a variety of assets with a variety of
individuals fishing that you need a long-term approach to make sure those assets
become as valuable in 10 years time, in 20 years time, as they are today. That
you have a good structure in place to make sure that you get involved in the
fishery both from a science perspective and a management perspective from a
community as a whole. So I think that the management plan approach, you need to
be able to be sure that you can generate enough funds to replenish all your
assets and that you have someone to manage the fisheries.
Five years have passed since the Marshall decision has
come down…
Once a contentious issue… Aboriginal fishers and DFO
officials now find time to play a friendly game of hockey.
…now the biggest battle being waged here…is on the ice.
I think the relationship is very good. We don't play hockey much so it's
great, it's great and once you get to know people, a trust becomes there and
when you can get to know them a little outside of work too, it's very positive.
Today the goal for both teams is to move forward using the
Marshall decision to create economic opportunity.
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