Twenty-nine of the 34 Mi'kmaq and Maliseet reserves have signed one-year agreements with the federal government in Ottawa regulating lobster fishing. But Burnt Church residents voted 308 to 28 during an all-day referendum August 9 to reject federal management. The next day they asserted their rights by putting out more than the 40 traps they are authorized to set during the fall food season, claiming the right to set upward of 5,000 traps in the Miramichi Bay. Federal Department of Fisheries officers in patrol boats had already seized 2,000.

The Mi'kmaqs, in small open craft, have confronted the police on the sea. Two Native boats were rammed and sunk August 29, forcing the occupants to jump into the water to avoid being hit by the federal vessel. Burnt Church residents are demanding that criminal charges be laid. Four Natives have been arrested so far for obstruction of justice.

The confrontations are taking place in the wake of the September 1999 Supreme Court decision ruling that Natives have the right to sell fish caught outside the commercial fishing season. The ruling was based on a 1760 treaty between the British government and Mi'kmaq, Maliseet, and Passama-quoddy peoples, covering practically the entire Atlantic coast of Canada. However, in a subsequent decision, the justices wrote that this did not mean that "the Mi'kmaq are guaranteed an open season in the fisheries" and that the federal government has every right to regulate a fishery in accordance with conservation principles.

Mi'kmaqs from Quebec's Listuguj First Nation drove to Burnt Church to bring their support. In Belleville, Ontario, about 30 Tyendinaga Mohawks blocked a major commuter bridge to support the Mi'kmaqs. Chief Matthew Coon Come, recently elected chief of the Assembly of First Nations, also went to Burnt Church. He demanded the government "call off [the] troops." Some 100 federal fisheries officers are on call in New Brunswick.

In 1999, Federal Department of Fisheries minister Herb Dhaliwal ruled that the Mi'kmaqs from Burnt Church would be limited to 600 lobster traps among 1,450 people during the commercial fishing season and 40 during a fall food fishery. In the same area, commercial fishermen are allowed 325 traps each during the commercial fishing season. Dhaliwal has said he will not negotiate with Burnt Church residents until they stop setting lobster traps.

In the neighboring province of Nova Scotia, four Indian Brook band members were arrested by federal agents and accused of obstruction of justice. They had followed the example set in Burnt Church of asserting their fishing rights. Their lawyer said the decision by Department of Fisheries minister Dhaliwal that determines when and where natives are authorized to fish is "unconstitutional and a violation of our treaty rights. We want this decision to be reversed."

In northwestern Quebec, Algonquins set up a barricade to prevent clear-cutting by the multinational company Domtar. The company agreed to move operations elsewhere while negotiations take place on who has title to the 389 square kilometers of forest the Algonquins depend on. The Algonquins aim to maintain their barricade, not to block traffic, but as a checkpoint "until the land-claim issue is settled," explained Jacob Wawatie.

Joanne Pritchard is a member of the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees.  
 

The following is a statement issued by John Steele, Communist League candidate for mayor of Toronto.

The August 29 attack by armed officers of the Department of Fisheries against Native lobster fishermen from the Burnt Church reserve in New Brunswick should be seen as a threat not only to the national rights of Canada's 1 million Native people, but also to the democratic rights of all workers and working farmers from one end of the country to the other.

Two Native boats were rammed and sunk. It was only luck that the Mi'kmaq fishermen were not seriously injured or killed. Working people should support the Mi'kmaq demand that the officers who carried out the attack be charged with attempted murder.

Ottawa's use of deadly force against the Mi'kmaq people is a denial of their national right to use the lobster fishery to make a living. This right was recognized by a 1999 Supreme Court ruling based on a 1760 treaty with the British government. All claims that Native fishing threaten the lobster stock are a fake and a fraud. The threat comes from the capitalist-owned fishing fleets backed by Ottawa.

All levels of government are involved in the decades-long effort to force Native people into submission. The attack against the Mi'kmaq took place almost one week before the fifth anniversary of the killing of Native activist Dudley George by the Ontario Provincial Police at a Native burial ground at Ipperwash, Ontario. The Ontario government, which is deeply implicated in the killing, has refused the demand for a public inquiry. The Toronto City Council, led by Mayor Melvin Lastman, also stands against Native rights with its decision, over the objections of the Native people in Northern Ontario, to ship garbage from Toronto to an abandoned mine shaft on their territory, creating an environmental disaster waiting to happen.

The resistance by the Mi'kmaq to Ottawa's terror tactics, the continued efforts of the Stoney Point Native people to win justice for Dudley George, and the continuing protests in Toronto streets over the August 9 killing of Otto Vass following a beating at the hands of the Toronto police show that the increased use of cop violence against working people by Canada's ruling rich--violence that will more and more become the norm against strikers on picket lines--is not going unanswered. Support for the just demands of the Mi'kmaqs by all working people will strengthen this fight.  
 
 
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