I have a statement, and we'll see how much time is left once we go through that. I'll try to be brief.
My name is George Ginnish. I'm the Chief of the Natoaganeg, or the Eel Ground First Nation.
I welcome you here today to the unceded territory of the Mi'kmaq and to our district, the seventh district of the Mi'gmaq Gespe'gewa'gi.
Natoaganeg is located on the Miramichi River in northern New Brunswick, close to the junction of the Northwest Miramichi River and Southwest Miramichi River. We're about five minutes from here. Our community has reserves on three branches of the Miramichi.
I've served as chief of my community for 20 years, and for a few years on council, before that.
I'm also co-chair the Mi’gmawe’l Tplu’taqnn. Its members are the nine Mi'kmaq communities located in what is now New Brunswick. We work together to advance and protect Mi'kmaq rights, including our right to fish for food, for social and ceremonial purposes, and commercially.
I'm also the chair of the North Shore Micmac District Council and our AAROM, Anqotum Resource Management, which represents eight of our Mi'kmaq communities on fisheries issues, including building capacity to participate effectively in advisory and decision-making processes used for aquatic resource and oceans management.
I'll be speaking today on behalf of all those organizations.
I'm supported today by Devin Ward, who works as a fisheries coordinator with Mi’gmawe’l Tplu’taqnn and is a senior biologist with Anqotum.
We, the Mi'kmaq, are the indigenous people of this territory, and since time immemorial we have occupied our traditional lands known as Mi'kma'ki. Our Mi'kmaq traditional lands and waters are located throughout the provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland, and extend into Quebec and Maine.
We have relied on our lands, waters, and resources for our way of life, as they have provided us with food, shelter, and all aspects of our daily lives.
Our relationship with the lands, waters, and resources is the foundation of our identity. As indigenous peoples, we managed our fisheries for thousands of years based on Mi'kmaq principles, and the fish remained abundant.
The Mi'kmaq people have lived throughout the Miramichi River system and relied on it for their physical, spiritual, and cultural sustenance, and their livelihood since time immemorial.
In the 18th century, on a nation-to-nation basis, the Mi'kmaq entered into a series of peace and friendship treaties with the British Crown between 1725 and 1779. These treaties form a covenant chain, and the treaty relationship with the Crown, as represented by the Government of Canada, is ongoing.
We have never surrendered our title to these lands and waters, and our sacred treaties protect our rights to shared stewardship of our resources and to fish throughout our territory, both for food, social, and ceremonial purposes, and to earn our livelihood.
Our communities fish a variety of species in order to meet our needs and to earn a living. Our food fishery is distributed to community members, and a number of our community members rely on the income they earn in our modest commercial fishery.
Five of our Mi'kmaq communities are among the 10 poorest postal codes in all of Canada. Our fishery is very much a matter of physical, cultural, and spiritual survival for our people.
A recent study by the University of Ottawa that was conducted in our community shows that 40% of our Eel Ground First Nation members are food insecure.
While all species are important to our people, Plamu, or salmon, has a particular significance to the Mi'kmaq. Salmon is not only a staple of our diet, but is intimately tied to our cultural and spiritual practices. Our ability to fish salmon for food is essential to feeding our most vulnerable families, children, and elders. The fate of the Atlantic salmon is of utmost importance to us.
After thousands of years of sustainable management by the Mi'kmaq, many of the species we rely on, including the Atlantic salmon, have been driven to the verge of extinction in less than 150 years.
Miramichi is one of the last great salmon rivers in New Brunswick. Despite significant conservation efforts, our salmon population is under significant pressure, with record low returns in recent years.
Our community has been reduced to a small, food, social, and ceremonial fishery, which we are under constant pressure to suspend entirely.
Survival of the salmon smolts migrating out of the Miramichi river system is estimated to be 50% or less. This means that only half of the young ready to migrate to sea to become adults ever make it to the ocean.
The species experiences pressure from forestry, from climate change, from predations, and from other species, such as striped bass and seal.
Salmon is a cold water species. High temperatures have resulted in the closure of several salmon pools this past summer. The government continues to allow industrial and resource development activities in our watersheds and oceans, which threaten the salmon, such as offshore oil, subsea cables, the Sisson Brook mine and the energy east TransCanada pipeline.
The Supreme Court of Canada has confirmed our rights to fish for food social ceremonies in the Marshall decision in 1999 and to fish commercially to earn a moderate livelihood. The court has also confirmed that only genuine conservation objectives can take priority over first nations fishery, and that first nations fishery must take priority over recreational and commercial fisheries.
Canada has never implemented the Marshall decision, and most of our communities' members are unable to earn a moderate livelihood from our fishery. Our communities remain poor while others get rich.
DFO continually ignores the priorities set out by the Supreme Court of Canada. It does not meaningfully engage the Mi'kmaq in conservation efforts, and we are continually asked to reduce our fishing activities in the name of conservation.
As an example, we continue to face pressure to reduce or eliminate our food, social, and ceremonial fishery for Atlantic salmon for conservation reasons. We are not allowed a commercial fishery, yet the recreational fishery continues without any substantive study of the impact of catch-and-release on salmon mortality and population numbers. This is completely contrary to the priority mandated by the Supreme Court of Canada.
Another example is the impact of seal and striped bass predation on salmon populations. We had asked DFO to open up the aboriginal food fishery and commercial fishery for Mi'kmaq for striped bass and grey seal. As you may be aware, striped bass were put under a moratorium for low numbers five years ago. It was considered recovered should the population consist of approximately 35,000 spawning adults for five consecutive years. They have met and exceeded this number. The latest population estimates that exists for a 20-mile stretch of river that is in our traditional territory now exceeds 300,000 bass.
To date, we've only been allowed a limited food fishery in striped bass, and our requests for a commercial bass fishery or seal fishery have been ignored. At the same time, DFO has opened up a recreational fishery in striped bass. Somehow, the recreational fishery takes priority over aboriginal treaty rights, contrary to the direction of the Supreme Court of Canada.
Our communities presented to the minister’s advisory committee on Atlantic salmon in March 2015 through the Assembly of First Nations' Chiefs in New Brunswick at North Shore on quota. We provided a copy of the assembly's submission to that committee along with my speaking notes today, and I encourage you to read it. We call for a greater Mi'kmaq role in conservation enforcement measures, and measures to restore the balance between the species in our ecosystem, with a greater role for first nations and indigenous knowledge in advancing science.
The ministerial advisory committee issued its report in August 2015. They adopted some of our suggestions and ignored others. We were told that while the committee itself did not engage in consultation, we would be consulted by DFO on the recommendations that were made, many of which touched on first nations. We requested a meeting with the minister to discuss this report, and to date no consultation or meeting with the minister has taken place.
Similarly, my appearance before this committee today does not discharge the duty to consult with first nations, nor does it meet Canada's treaty obligations. DFO needs to sit down with us in the spirit of the treaty partnership and begin to involve us as true partners in decisions regarding conservation enforcement, management, and allocation. Our indigenous knowledge needs to be respected alongside science. DFO needs to respect the law as set out by the Supreme Court of Canada.
The Mi'kmaq need to be given priority access to the fishery, which can only be limited for genuine conservation reasons. Nothing more or less than our survival depends on it.
Thank you.