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BEN CHIN (ANCHOR): Let’s take you live now to Halifax, where Atlantic chiefs have been meeting all day, and there you see Mathew Coon Come, the National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations. Joining him as well will be Chief Wilbur Dedam of the Burnt Church reserve, and right now Mathew Coon Come is speaking so let’s listen-in live. MATHEW COON COME (AFN CHIEF): ..to respect its own laws, to call off the troops and to enter into a relationship with our First Nations peoples that is fair, equitable and just. First Nations peoples are waiting and watching patiently all over this land. They see the behaviour and the brutal attitude of Canada. They are asking the question, can we finally have what is ours? Can we have a fair and equitable part of the great wealth that is in this land? Or will we continue to be made the poorest of the poor while all around us people use and exploit our resources to enrich themselves at our expense? This is not solely about fish. This is not solely about lobsters or snow crabs. This is about life and the land and resources that support our existence and well-being. This is about Canada’s persistent policy of dispossession of our lands and resources. This is about a repressive government that finally shows its true face to the world in the past few weeks. We have something to tell Canadians. "No enforcement is never pretty." What a sick and sorry excuse to say a thing like that. Canada was not enforcing the law. No Minister Dhaliwal you are not respecting the rule of law. You are continuing Canada’s policy of dispossession and denial of our fundamental human rights. For 150 years you denied our right to fish and you said that was the law. Donald Marshall Junior did not go to the Supreme Court of Canada of his own free will. You dragged Donald Marshall through every court in this land all the way to the Supreme Court. Over what? A few eels? You said you were enforcing the law but the Supreme Court said your were wrong. You should have been ashamed to put Mr. Marshall through another ordeal of law. He had already suffered enough from Canada’s so-called law. Where was Canada’s judgement and reason? I’ve already said I want Canada to respect its own laws. I want Canada to respect its constitution, which says it is the highest law in the land. Instead what do we have? It’s the selective misuse of the law to deny the rights of first nations. Canada picks and chooses the laws it wants to enforce and those it want it wants to ignore or repudiate. For 150 years Canada said that we did not have the right to the fisheries resources. That was the law. Canadians are not being told the truth. They are told that are rights are race-based. Canada fears to tell its citizens what is in its own constitution. We have to tell the Canadian public we have rights because we were nations here before there ever was a Canada. Our rights predate Canada. Our rights exist because we are nations and peoples. Our rights are based on original ownership of lands and resources. In simple terms, we were here first. We never gave up these rights and this is why Canada put up such a fight against Donald Marshall. The Maritime Treaties contain or surrender extinguishment provisions. Canada fears treaties that are made nation-to-nation between equals. They insist on a relationship based upon its own supremacy and dominance. That is why it insists on extinguishment even though the United Nations have condemned Canada’s use of extinguishment against aboriginal peoples as a violation of Canada’s obligations under international law of human rights. Conservation is an embarrassment for Canada. The DFO is famous the world over for its failure to protect the cod fishery until it was too late. It’s also famous for political interference standing in place of legal responsibility. Canada is a very poor and incompetent guardian of the environment and its natural resources. We need only look at the sad condition of Canadian forests and rivers to find out about conservation. So who is the government trying to fool? The fact is that there are about three million DFO officially-sanctioned lobster traps in the water of the Atlantic fishery. The real number may be as high as four million traps because the DFO has only a small budget for its very lax enforcement against non-natives. Against this reality we have to consider the actual number of first nation traps in the water. Maybe 100. Maybe 300. Even if First Nations put in 5,000 traps or more, this would represent a minuscule proportion of the millions of traps on the coast. A tiny fraction of one per cent. Certainly no conservation threat. The government is dead set, from all we can see, against the recognition of our economic rights. The Canadian Atlantic lobster fishery is worth close to a half-a-billion dollars a year. Billions of dollars worth of trees are taken from our lands each year. Our rivers produce billions of hydro electricity dollars. Our lands are mined and flooded, but little of anything is returned to our people and what little there is, is always characterized to the Canadian public as something we are being given. As something that is not ours by right. Canada opposed Donald Marshall. It lost. It is now time to do the necessary work. The economic studies, community consultations, the fisheries studies, to fully implement that decision. In the meantime there must be no arbitrary enforcement of the supposed Marshall decision made by the Ministry of Fisheries officials. No, our rights will stand. The Marshall decision came down recognizing our aboriginal treaty rights. To be proper the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans should have amended its DFO regulations so that they were in compliance with the Marshall decision. But they are unilaterally imposing a 1992 DFO regulation. That is unacceptable. Our people know that our survival as first nations depends upon our access to lands and resources. Any threats against that, the government authorities can devise a ---inaudible--- against our need to survive as a peoples and as a nation. We have to find ways of how we can coexist. We will not leave this country. We are here to stay. We want access and a share in the wealth of this land and the public and the Canadian Government must decide whether they’re going to lock us out, or whether we’re going to receive our fair share of those natural resources from our lands. Burnt Church, Indian Brook, these are symptoms of a larger problem and they will not go away. For we as first nations are demanding a fair share in the natural resources, for the fish, for the treaties, for the minerals, and even for the water. The status quo has not solved our high unemployment in our communities, of our poverty. The status quo is unacceptable. This is a new millennium. We need new approaches, new initiatives. Thank you very much. BEN CHIN (ANCHOR): National Chief Mathew Coon Come of the Assembly of First Nations speaking at a gathering of native leaders representing the native bands and reserves of Atlantic Canada, talking about the dispute over the lobster fishery in Burnt Church, also in Indian Brook Reserve, and saying that it’s the Canadian Government that will decide whether native people get a fair share of natural resources or will be shut out. And he says they he took issue with something Fisheries Minister Herb Dhaliwal said about the now famous boat ramming incident that happened involving DFO officers and native fishers. When the Fisheries Minister said enforcement is never pretty. Commenting on that Mathew Coon Come said that, that was a sick way of characterizing it and that this is an ongoing practice of dispossession and denial of native rights in Canada. Clearly if you were with us yesterday and you saw the news conference by the commercial fishers union, that is the non-native fishers in the area, you see how the dispute goes on with two very different readings of the Marshall decision at the Supreme Court. One emphasizing that aboriginal people have a right to the fish. The other saying Ottawa has a right to regulate how much of the resource the aboriginal community is entitled to. That wraps up our live coverage of that event. Copyright © Assembly of First Nations |