And now:[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
OTTOWA: October 5, 1999
OTTAWA - Canada's federal government came up with no plan to deal with
the intense discord and threats of violence that have erupted between
Indian and non-native fishermen, but said it will start talks to try
to find a solution.
The dispute follows a Supreme Court of Canada ruling that allows
Indian fishermen to fish out of season.
Fisheries Minister Herb Dhaliwal told a news conference that he would
seek an agreement in a matter of days on how to deal with the court's
verdict, which Indians say was long overdue, but which non-native
fishermen say will deplete the fishery.
"We're taking this very, very seriously," Dhaliwal insisted at an
Ottawa news conference as he outlined his goal of a "more contemporary
relationship" between native and nonnative fishermen.
In effect, Dhaliwal will, for now, allow Indians in the Maritime
provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick to continue to harvest
lobster and other fish while non-natives sit idle.
The Indians say this was simply a recognition of a 239-year-old
treaty, which the Supreme Court upheld, but Dhaliwal's remarks
infuriated many nonnative fishermen, who have had to pay as much as
C$200,000 for license to trap lobster.
"Somehow we can't get it through their skulls in Ottawa that we're
dealing with a very, very tense situation," Maritime Fishermen's Union
Executive Director Mike Belliveau said after watching the nationally
broadcast news conference.
"We had people who were watching Dhaliwal's press conference, and are
more furious as the result of it," he told Reuters from New Brunswick.
Belliveau said catch rates at this time of the year are up to 10 times
as much as in the spring, and the Mi'kmaq Indians were scooping them
up.
"If you take them all out, they're not going to be there in the
spring. It's not rocket science," he said. "He won't have an agreement
in days."
Peter Stoffer, an opposition member of Parliament from Nova Scotia,
scoffed: "All we hear from this minister is that we have to talk
more...Right now the lobsters need a rest and no one should be
catching them out of season."
The Supreme Court verdict was the latest in a string of decisions
taking a generous view of native rights that have left governments
scrambling to reconcile those rights with sometimes difficult
realities on the ground.
In the Nova Scotia legislature on Friday, Mi'kmaq Grand Captain Alex
Denny defended his people fishing now as the natural result of
frustration built over centuries: "What you're seeing now is not
greed. It's anger, it is bitterness."
He said giving fishing rights to the Mi'kmaq would only require
reallocating 10 percent of the catch, but he added that he wanted
compensation from Ottawa for the last 132 years.
"We've gone to court, and we have won, so today let us celebrate," he
declared. .
Story by Randall Palmer
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
Reprinted under the Fair Use http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html doctrine
of international copyright law.
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
Tsonkwadiyonrat (We are ONE Spirit)
Unenh onhwa' Awayaton
http://www.tdi.net/ishgooda/
UPDATES: CAMP JUSTICE
http://shell.webbernet.net/~ishgooda/oglala/
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
