I would ask that we actually have discussions with Fisheries about treaty access. That hasn't happened with our communities.
DFO needs to change its mandate. It does not address moderate livelihood, and that needs to happen in collaboration with us. So far it's the Jones rights reconciliation agreement that is on the table and it has no latitude for movement. It asks as part of the signing process that we agree to not assert our treaty rights for another 10 years if we sign onto those agreements.
We have not treaty fished for 21 years, and to ask us not to do that for another 10 years while dangling some additional moneys in front of us is an insult. We have raised this issue with the minister and from our perspective we say lift that non-assertion clause in those agreements—it's been 20 years—and sit down to really begin to talk about treaty access and including our members.
Our political organization, MTI, is engaging with our communities now to see who wants to fish, what skills people have and what skills we need. We know what our challenges are in terms of poverty in our community. It's a reality. This is a right. We want to be able to support our members to have a livelihood, to support their families, to feel good about practising a traditional skill.
When you look at the Miramichi River 150 years from Confederation, our community had salmon galore that filled our rivers. That salmon was fished commercially by everyone but the three first nations on the river. It was fished to the point of extinction. Our communities were never allowed to take a fish and sell it.
That really is hard to swallow. My grandfather had a commercial licence. He could catch fish finally in the 1960s to feed his family, but he was not allowed to sell it. It was years later before there were finally court cases that would have held up our right to be able to fish to support our families.
We have come from a hard—