Madam Speaker, it is an honour to rise today to talk about a very important issue facing Canadians from coast to coast to coast. People across Canada have been watching what is happening in Nova Scotia to the Mi'kmaq, to the Sipekne'katik people, and demanding that the government uphold the rule of law to keep Mi'kmaq fishers safe.
All Canadians deserve to be safe and have the security they need. This year has been marked by unfounded and unjust violence against Black and indigenous people in Canada and the United States. What has happened in Sipekne'katik cannot be dismissed as just another event. It must be seen as the act of domestic terrorism and that is what it is.
We can talk about how shocked we are and about how this is not Canada, but for indigenous people and for Mi'kmaq fishers, this has been the reality for generations. I speak about how the RCMP watched things unfold, the burning of a lobster pound, the intimidation, the assaults that took place and the cutting of traps. DFO and the RCMP sat idly. Only two arrests have been made since then. For weeks, we have been calling for the RCMP to bolster forces to provide safety and security to the people there and that has not happened.
I just want to talk about how the response has been different for the Haudenosaunee and the Six Nations. The government showed up with what seemed like a militarized barricade and used rubber bullets on indigenous protesters. I think we are all horrified to be learning of the news of a Secwepemc man near Williams Lake getting literally assaulted by the RCMP just yesterday.
The government needs to get body cameras on RCMP officers now. They need an independent investigating officer, not just for the violence inflicted on indigenous people by the RCMP, but also when charges have not been laid and the RCMP have sat idle.
In 1999, the Marshall decision upheld the right for the Mi'kmaq to practise their inherent right to fish. They have the constitutional and treaty right to earn a moderate living and when they attempt to practise that right, they are stopped by DFO and are harassed by non-indigenous fishers. The acts of violence are nothing new and the indifference from consecutive Liberal and Conservative governments remains the same.
In 1999, the fisheries and oceans committee, of which the hon. member for Malpeque was a member, said that the Department of Fisheries and Oceans was caught off guard by the Marshall decision and were unprepared to stop violence and have conversations with fishers.
Here we are 21 years later still talking about the Mi'kmaq fishers and their right to a moderate living, and still talking about how to respond to the acts of terror against them. We are talking and talking with no action. It is beyond time the government take its so-called “most important relationship” seriously. The Minister of Fisheries must empower her department to act before violence happens again, ensure that negotiators come to the table with the resources to support that nation so they can accommodate their right to a moderate livelihood and hold people who choose violence to account. I am asking for this urgently.