Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good evening. My name is Chief George Ginnish. I am the chief of the Natoaganeg First Nation and I co-chair Mi'gmawe'l Tplu'taqnn, which is the organization of our Mi'kmaq first nations in New Brunswick. I have been the chief of my community since 1996 and I am speaking to you today from Mi'kma'ki, the unceded and unsurrendered territory of the Mi'kmaq people.
Mi'kmaq are signatories to peace and friendship treaties with the British Crown, of which Canada is now a beneficiary. Our ancestors negotiated treaties in which they were promised that we would be allowed to continue to hunt and fish, as we had for thousands of years, and to trade in these goods. Signing these agreements was intended to bring a peaceful relationship between our people and yours. Unfortunately, this has not been the case. DFO rules have expressly been designed to systemically exclude us from the fishery.
We had hoped that the Marshall decision would usher in a new era of peace and prosperity for our communities. We hoped that we would be able to work together to implement our right to a moderate livelihood in a way that was respectful of our rights as a self-governing people and in accordance with Mi'kmaq laws. Again, this has not been the case. Instead of working to implement the treaties, the federal government chose a policy response to a court decision, known as the Marshall response initiative.
Under the Marshall agreements, instead of implementing a treaty-based fishery, DFO offered funding to bands to purchase licences, vessels and gear from existing fishers so that we could participate in the existing commercial fishery under DFO's rules. This was designed to appease non-indigenous fishers, not implement Mi'kmaq rights. While some Mi'kmaq communities refused to sign, many communities, impoverished and long denied any access to fisheries, felt compelled to sign these one-sided agreements.
There were significant inequities in the funding and in the distribution of access to various fisheries. My community was specifically excluded from access to the lucrative snow crab fishery, access that all of our neighbouring Mi'kmaq communities in northern New Brunswick enjoy. Some communities also received much higher levels of funding per capita than others.
We were told that these were interim measures, that the inequalities would be rectified, and that our rights would be implemented through a trilateral negotiation tables. A table was established in New Brunswick in 2007-08. For the next decade we made little progress as DFO refused to negotiate. This was supposed to change in 2017 when the federal government came to our table with a new fisheries mandate and a new negotiator.
When our chiefs first met with the newly appointed federal negotiator, Jim Jones, in December 2017 we made clear that we did not want this negotiation process to be a repeat of the Marshall response initiative. We wanted DFO to negotiate with the Mi'kmaq as a collective and respect our need to implement our treaty rights in a way that was respectful of our right to self-determination and of our nation-to-nation relationship. Specifically, we wanted to work together to define and implement a moderate livelihood, to recognize the fact that a rights-based Mi'kmaq fishery must be self-governing and to provide access on a priority basis for our communities that have long been denied their rights.
Unfortunately, again this has not been the case. DFO came to the table with a mandate that they unilaterally developed. The mandate is to provide funding to purchase more commercial access and not to define and implement a true livelihood fishery. DFO has again sought to undermine and divide us as a collective and to negotiate agreements with individual bands.
Although they acknowledge that purchasing commercial access is inadequate to address a moderate livelihood, they refuse to explore other possible solutions. Everything the Mi'kmaq have put forward as a potential solution to the impasse has been rejected by DFO as being outside their mandate.
We have tried to express these concerns to a series of ministers, but they have fallen on deaf ears. Despite repeated requests, we have been unable to get a meeting with Minister Bernadette Jordan. In the responses that we do receive, she merely reiterates the same inflexible position that has already been heard at the table.
This needs to change. In collaboration with the Mi'kmaq, the Government of Canada needs to revisit and revise DFO's negotiation mandate. The mandate must recognize our right to self-determination, and it must recognize that a rights-based fishery must be self-governing in accordance with Mi'kmaq laws.
I thank you for listening and welcome any questions you may have later.
Wela'lin. Thank you.