Fisheries committee  Yes, it's a ripple effect.

Fisheries committee  Our communal lobster commercial fishery is all first nations people from our community who are involved in that: the management, the fishermen, right down to the deckhands.

Fisheries committee  We don't do that. Our food, social ceremonial fishery is completely different. It goes from August to October.

Fisheries committee  Thank you. You were asking about our relationship with the traditional fisheries on P.E.I.

Fisheries committee  Well, we're already in the fishery. We are fishing side by side to some degree with the traditional fishers, like the commercial, privilege-based fisheries. We've had a really good discussion with them. The younger fishermen especially ask a lot of really good questions. What I learned from that discussion was that they really don't know about the treaty right at all.

Fisheries committee  We wouldn't be chiefs. We won't be chiefs for very long if we start talking about selling out our rights. I'll tell you that much.

Fisheries committee  Our people would expect us to bring it to a community discussion and a vote if we were to sign some kind of a rights-prejudiced agreement.

Fisheries committee  Do you mean like a Mi'kmaq fishers authority? Well, the senators have approached the first nations on P.E.I. to talk about that idea. I've approached the chiefs at an all-chiefs meeting and said, “Let's have a nationhood gathering; let's have a Mi'kmaq nation gathering.” I didn't get much uptake on it right now.

Fisheries committee  I wasn't there.

Fisheries committee  Yes, they always have the big nation-to-nation discussions, and then we all splinter at the end of the day. I think it would be great if we could have the overarching Mi'kmaq fisheries authority, and then everybody, like the provinces, work together.

Fisheries committee  I don't think we're going to get there really quickly, so for this winter.... P.E.I. is small. I think we could get a lot of things done. We could come together in unity on a bunch of things. We want to talk to all of P.E.I. We want all islanders to understand our treaty rights and we want them to be a part of it.

Fisheries committee  Treaty education is so important.

Fisheries committee  I would like to see that the mandate for the negotiation be taken from the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans and given to Carolyn Bennett under CIRNAC, because she has the portfolio to work on rights and this is a rights-based issue. It's not about commercial access, as this minister's mandate is.

Fisheries committee  Release the RRA envelopes.

Fisheries committee  They should release the RRA envelopes to the first nations so that money could be used for us to do our engagement. We need to be supported in our engagements. We need the minister, whichever one is going to be responsible, to come to our communities and to talk to us. We need that.