Honourable senators, I rise this evening in support of the motion moved by Senator Francis on behalf of himself and Senator Christmas. I thank our colleagues for bringing this important matter to the Senate floor.

I do not wish to repeat all the important points made in the eloquent speeches by our colleagues, but I do want to put my strong support on the record. I believe this issue and how it has escalated goes much deeper than a regional fisheries dispute.

As a senator from Ontario, which notably does not have much of a lobster fishery, I cannot speak to the personal feelings and historical tensions between Indigenous and non-Indigenous commercial fishers. What I can do, though, is speak as a Canadian, one who believes strongly that what impacts one group impacts all of us, directly or not. One did not need to be a Franco-Ontarian or even a francophone to support language rights in Ontario when the province’s government wanted to cut French-language services in 2018. One did not need to be a person of colour to speak against racism and discrimination in Canada during the emergency debate here in June, nor is it required to support the current inquiry on racism and discrimination in Canadian institutions.

And so, one does not need to be an Indigenous fisher or Indigenous at all or even from Nova Scotia to care about this dispute, to support the legal rights of Indigenous fishers and to condemn the unjustified violence and aggression that has exacerbated the problem. Beyond being a regional fisheries dispute or even a legal matter, I believe this goes to the heart of a much bigger issue, that of reconciliation, which should matter to all Canadians.

That is how I felt two years ago when I spoke in support of then Bill C-262 on the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and that is how I feel now.

Apart from the Senate, my strong belief in the importance of reconciliation, which is necessary to Canada reaching its full potential, has existed since long before I became a senator.

In 1998, when I was Canada’s Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the Organization of American States, I pushed for then National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations Phil Fontaine to address the OAS Permanent Council in Washington.

An Indigenous leader had never addressed this body before. It was as important as it was historic, particularly given the history of the western hemisphere.

When I was Canada’s Ambassador to Germany, I was often asked about Canada’s difficult history and relationship with Indigenous peoples and about reconciliation.

I tried to dispel many myths and romantic notions. These conversations are difficult enough to have in Canada but to try to explain it all to people on the outside looking in was, and is, a challenge.

More recently, in 2018, immediately before I was called to the Senate, I was deputy minister and helped organize the G7 Summit. I appeared on a Huron-Wendat radio show in Quebec City and we provided some summit-related work opportunities to Indigenous youth.

I also made it a point to sit down with Indigenous leaders in the Charlevoix region of Quebec, where that year’s summit was held, to speak with them about their hopes and dreams for their people and their concerns for the future.

At the end of the day, colleagues, what these leaders want is what we all want: to be able to provide for our families in peace. That is all the Indigenous fishers in Nova Scotia want too. It is not only their desire but their right to provide for themselves and their families. That is not up for debate, colleagues.

We can talk about what moderate livelihood means and the role of the RCMP and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, but the fact is that the Mi’kmaq and Maliseet First Nations in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and the Gaspé region of Quebec have all been guaranteed the right to not only fish but also to hunt and gather since the Peace and Friendship Treaties of 1760 and 1761. That’s 260 years. To put that into perspective, these Indigenous communities have had the constitutionally protect right to fish, hunt and gather for 107 years longer than Canada has even been a country. I think that’s significant, to put it mildly.

It was under the umbrella of these centuries-old treaties that Donald Marshall Jr., a Mi’kmaq man from Membertou, Nova Scotia — the same community in Cape Breton that Senator Christmas calls home — went eel fishing in August 1993.

In June 1996, Mr. Marshall was convicted in a ruling based on a very narrow interpretation of the treaties of 1760 and 1761 by the provincial court of Nova Scotia on all three charges for which he was arrested under two federal acts, the Fisheries Act and the Maritime Provinces Fishery Regulations. Specifically, he was arrested for:

. . . the selling of eels without a licence, fishing without a licence and fishing during the close season with illegal nets.

Mr. Marshall sold the 463 pounds of eels he caught.

In March 1997, Mr. Marshall’s convictions were upheld by the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal. This brings us to November 1998, when Mr. Marshall took his case to the Supreme Court of Canada. While neither of the lower courts in Nova Scotia recognized Mr. Marshall’s rights, which he knew he had under the Peace and Friendship Treaties, the Supreme Court did and reversed his convictions in September 1999.

Of particular importance, the Supreme Court ruled that Mr. Marshall was simply fishing enough to provide “necessaries” — in the language of the treaties, now known as a moderate livelihood — for himself and his spouse, which fell within his treaty rights.

In a nod to reconciliation and the importance of the nation-to-nation relationship, the Supreme Court said that:

This appeal should be allowed because nothing less would uphold the honour and integrity of the Crown in its dealings with the Mi’kmaq people to secure their peace and friendship, as best the content of those treaty promises can now be ascertained. . . .

Not only were Mr. Marshall’s rights to fish in pursuit of a moderate livelihood guaranteed by the Peace and Friendship Treaties but they, and all treaty rights enjoyed by Indigenous Peoples in Canada, are protected by section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982.

This brings us to the situation on the ground in Nova Scotia, colleagues. Part of what makes the violence that erupted in Nova Scotia earlier this fall so difficult to comprehend is that while “moderate livelihood” has never been legally defined, Indigenous fishers have been targeted for exercising their long-held, constitutionally enshrined treaty rights.

Indigenous fishers are not pursuing, as the Supreme Court put it, the “open-ended accumulation of wealth,” nor are they allowed to do so. What they are doing, as they have done for centuries, is providing for their families, as we all do.

The Marshall decision was a watershed moment in the context of Indigenous treaty rights. It allows Indigenous fishers to pursue a “moderate livelihood,” which, if they were permitted to fully implement such fisheries, would further provide First Nations communities, many of which are impoverished, the means to develop economically and socio-economically, which would, in turn, lead to increased self-sufficiency.

Instead of these points being seen as the positives they are, some non-Indigenous commercial fishers have taken the legal exercise of treaty rights — which, again, allows for the pursuit of a moderate livelihood — as a threat to their bottom line.

Since September of this year, when the Sipekne’katik First Nation in Nova Scotia launched its own moderate livelihood lobster fishery in St. Marys Bay, it has been subjected to violence and intimidation by non-Indigenous commercial fishers.

Mi’kmaq-owned boats have been burnt and traps have been stolen and damaged.

One particularly egregious, though not isolated, example of this aggression, and the historical tension and deeply entrenched racism and discrimination underscoring it, occurred in mid‑October.

A mob of hundreds of commercial fishers descended on a storage facility, freshly filled with lobster, started throwing rocks at a band member’s van, which they then torched, and then destroyed the lobster itself.

We all saw the pictures and video, colleagues. One week later, the storage facility was also destroyed. The RCMP deemed it a “suspicious act.”

The violence and intimidation escalated so much that, on October 30, the Sipekne’katik First Nation announced that it would not fish in Lobster Fishing Area 34 during the season which just started, despite having the right, and licences, to do so.

The fishers feared so much for their lives, and rightly so, that they didn’t want to risk their safety to exercise their constitutionally guaranteed rights.

These events are happening here in Canada, honourable colleagues, not in another country.

The anger of non-Indigenous fishers over the ruling boiled over soon after the ruling when Mi’kmaq fishers from the Burnt Church First Nation in New Brunswick began setting lobster traps out of season. This began an alarming three-year conflict known as the Burnt Church crisis, which bears a number of similarities to the situation in Nova Scotia, including the actions and inaction of the RCMP and officers from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. I will not recount the painful details as I have no doubt they’re vividly remembered, particularly by our colleagues from the Maritimes, but especially New Brunswick.

In response to the escalating conflict in Burnt Church, later in 1999, the Supreme Court sought to clarify its first ruling by saying that the treaty rights of Indigenous fishers are not infinite and can be limited on conservation grounds. Just as non‑Indigenous fishers were angered by the first Marshall ruling, Indigenous fishers were angered by the second because they saw it as an effort to appease non-Indigenous commercial fishers.

In other words, colleagues, what has happened in Nova Scotia these past couple months is not new. It is simply the latest flashpoint in an ongoing conflict that hurts all Canadians because it makes the strength of our nation-to-nation relationship that much more tenuous and thus the path to reconciliation that much rockier. Whatever part of the country you call home, colleagues, or whatever background from which you come — coastal or landlocked, Indigenous or non-Indigenous, fisher or not — we need to see this as a Canadian issue. How we interact with one another in one small part of the country makes a difference to how we all live with one another across this vast land.

In a year like this one, I think we can all agree that more listening, patience and understanding are needed.

Reconciliation is not a final destination; it is an ever-evolving journey. And, of course, there will be bumps along the way, but what has happened in Nova Scotia is no mere bump. The violence and aggression being employed against Indigenous fishers who are exercising treaty rights they have held for 260 years — rights affirmed by our Constitution and by our Supreme Court — is unacceptable and must be called out.

It is one thing to be frustrated by laws that one group feels disadvantaged by, but it is quite another to resort to mob violence. That is never justified in a country like Canada. The Senate, as has been said and demonstrated many times, exists to protect and defend the rights of minorities. It is that duty which we are now being called upon to fulfill.

I want to thank Senator Christmas and Senator Francis for their leadership, and I fully support their motion in its entirety. I urge all honourable senators to do the same.

Thank you, colleagues. Wela’lioq.