Thanks for the question.
First, we're extremely dissatisfied that the government originally committed to begin removing fish farms by September 30 as per Cohen and at the very last minute came up with an airy-fairy decision to allow them to stay there and then shoot for another date down the road.
Specifically to your question around consultation, the government is obliged to formally consult with those seven closest first nations, but I'm a thousand kilometres away from that and I'm directly impacted. I'm not potentially impacted; I'm directly impacted by those fish farms being there, and I have no opportunity to consult at all.
I can't remember the last time we engaged a minister or a deputy minister in a conversation around fishing in general. Too often we correspond to a minister, and we get a non-response back that's not even worth the paper it's written on.
The government has to do a lot of work on consultation, I think, in particular on article 19 of the declaration, which speaks of free, prior and informed consent; article 18, which speaks to our right to be involved in decisions that affect our rights—fish are a big piece of our rights—and, in particular, article 24, which speaks to protecting our food and our sustenance.
The short answer to your question is that the federal government has completely dropped the ball with regard to consultation for those of us who aren't part of those seven communities, but we do need to be involved.
Thank you.
