The Fundy North Fishermen’s Association held a meeting in St. George, N.B., Thursday to update members about the prospect of another Indigenous fishery in the Maritimes and what it could mean for them. The tiny Peskotomuhkati First Nation in southern New Brunswick, also known as Passamaquoddy, is negotiating with the federal government for status recognition which would provide the community with fishery access already accorded to other status First Nations in the region. “We don’t have a huge amount of information, but we do want people to be able to ask questions and raise any concerns that they have,” Maria Recchia, executive director of the Fundy North Fishermen’s Association, told CBC News before the meeting at Magaguadavic Place
The meeting was closed to members of the media. .
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Concerns among the association’s estimated 150 members include reduced access, increased competition on the water and shrinking income, Recchia has said. Association president Brad Small, who is a scallop fisherman, said many members are worried about how the system would work, particularly since the Peskotomuhkati band straddles the Canada-United States border. “It is right next to the United States and they fish in a different manner where their season is open year-round,” said Small. In Canada, the commercial fishing season is limited for conservation reasons.
“It involves two countries and that’s kind of the concerns, where maybe some rumours have started,” he said. There are about 350 members in the Passamaquoddy Schoodic Band in Canada and 3,000 members in Maine. Fisheries and Oceans Canada officials have declined to comment on what a potential fishery could look like, citing confidentiality of the ongoing negotiations. But in a statement to CBC News, Peskotomuhkati First Nation said its members in Maine should share its treaty fishing rights a position that could open Canadian waters to fishing by Indigenous people from the United States.
The Fundy North Fishermen’s Association, which represents small-scale commercial fishermen in New Brunswick from St. Martin’s to St. Stephen, including Deer Island and Campobello Island, as well as river fishermen, has been in ongoing discussions with the Peskotomuhkati about an Indigenous fishery. The association prevented at least one member from speaking to the media about it before Thursday’s meeting and every fisherman CBC News approached following the meeting declined to be interviewed. A couple of them suggested they had been told to keep quiet. One man did say, however, that some of the information presented has put his mind somewhat at ease.
Association members fish for lobsters, scallops, groundfish, herring, shrimp, shad, gaspereau and eels. The Peskotomuhkati contend they were participants in the same 18th-century treaties that were later found to guarantee fishery rights to the Mi’kmaq and other First Nations in the landmark Marshall decision. They maintain that those fishery rights are not dependent on negotiations underway with the federal government to recognize their status under the Indian Act.
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