Mi'kmaw chiefs reject DFO's $260M funding offer for fisheries access
Chiefs say they were concerned proposal was "rebranding of previously rejected proposals'
The Assembly of Nova Scotia Mi'kmaw Chiefs is saying thanks but no thanks to an offer from the federal government that would have provided almost $260 million over three years to help First Nations gain greater access to fisheries.
In a news release Friday, the assembly's 13 chiefs said they were concerned the proposal was "a rebranding of previously rejected proposals" and a threat to treaty rights.
"This proposal raises serious alarms," Chief Wilbert Marshall said in the release.
"DFO's approach reminded us of earlier initiatives from the 2000s, which failed to respect and uphold our inherent rights. Our treaty right to fish is not a commercial fishery."
Chief Gerald Toney, Marshall's co-lead of the assembly's fisheries portfolio, said the offer from the federal government could impose constraints on treaty rights.
"We have built a better way forward and the trust we have built within our communities and with our harvesters, through our community-based harvest plans, would be jeopardized if we even entertained these new agreements with DFO under this proposal," he said in the release.
A spokesperson for the federal government did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the chiefs' decision.
The funding program from DFO was contained in the federal government's fall economic statement and advanced to the chiefs by federal Fisheries Minister Diane Lebouthillier in early December.
A DFO spokesperson said earlier this week that the money would have been available to 34 Mi'kmaw and Wolastoqey Nations and the Peskotomuhkati Nation at Skutik to be used to buy licences, boats and gear through a willing buyer-willing seller process, as well as for participation in negotiations with the federal government "with the aim of reaching long-term collaborative management agreements."
Unlike previous programs, this one would see First Nations handle negotiations with willing sellers directly.
But according to the release from the assembly, the 13 Nova Scotia Mi'kmaw chiefs viewed the program as an effort to force people from their communities who fish into "the same licence-based system as the non-Indigenous commercial fishery."
"This has been long rejected by Mi'kmaw leadership in favour of emphasizing a Mi'kmaw-led process."
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