No Resolution to Nova Scotia Lobster Dispute Any Time Soon
On October 14, 2020, during a routine meeting of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans , committee member Jaime Battiste, the Liberal MP from Sydney, N.S. and the first Mi’kmaw MP in the House of Commons, brought forward a motion that the committee immediately undertake a study to examine the implementation of the Mi’kmaw constitutionally protected treaty right to fish in pursuit of a moderate livelihood. He pointed out that he had woken up that morning to disturbing accounts of violence by non-indigenous fishers in Nova Scotia who had set a van on fire and ransacked two lobster pounds holding lobster fished by Mi’kmaq fishers from the Sipekne’katik First Nation, while RCMP officers stood by without intervening. A month earlier, on September 17—the 21st anniversary of the 1999 Supreme Court ruling of R. v. Marshall, which upheld the right of Mi'kmaq, Maliseet and Passamaquoddy First Nations in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and the