QUESTION PERIOD — Ministry of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard
Systemic Racism
June 4, 2024
Good to see you again, minister. In 2022, the Standing Senate Committee on Fisheries and Oceans released the report, Peace on the Water, which addressed systemic racism within Fisheries and Oceans Canada, or DFO. Despite the department’s assurances that it recognizes the urgency of eliminating systemic racism, in April, two Mi’kmaw fishermen were forced to walk along the highway at night without their phones or shoes after fishery officers seized their belongings.
Minister, the current action plan is clearly ineffective, and we have consistently heard of instances of racism in testimony before our committee. How will your department put an end to discriminatory practices within the DFO? Does the department have any plan?
I was in Nova Scotia last weekend, and I met with folks in the Eskasoni First Nation. I also met with one of the fishermen, one of the young men who had been left without shoes on the side of the road in the middle of the night. As I mentioned, I see these kinds of incidents as completely unacceptable. The deputy minister also attended the meeting in the Eskasoni community with me. A committee is going to be struck. Discussions are taking place this week to determine who will serve on the committee. We also want to make sure that the committee’s mandate is discussed with Indigenous communities to ensure that these situations never happen again. As I said, what happened is unacceptable.
Minister, there are processes and protocols in place, and yet these two fishermen went through an unnecessary traumatic ordeal which in turn affected their entire community. How was this investigated or is it being investigated, and how were or are the fishery officers being disciplined? What action was taken by your department?
Internal investigations are currently under way. It’s an administrative process. We’re waiting for the results. At the same time, it was important to have another committee that’s not under the supervision of Fisheries and Oceans Canada. It was important to me that this committee be independent. We’re looking into who could head up that committee, and we’d like people from the Indigenous community to be included. Names of former senators have been submitted as possible members of the committee. As I said, we’re going to make sure we move forward so that these situations don’t happen again.
