The ongoing situation playing out between settlers and Mi’kmaq fishers at Digby-area wharves is one that Haligonians may feel disconnected from.
‘We’re 200 kilometres away, what can we do?’ you may ask yourself. You wonder whether you have a role to play, or are an outsider looking in. You ask yourself whether you should speak up.
Well, you can. And if you’re a business owner (or an employee who can give polite suggestions to management) here are five tangible ways you can help.
1 Make a solidarity statement
This is the easiest one. Use the power of social media and your following for good. It takes nothing but a few minutes of your time to make a Facebook, Twitter or Instagram post (or all three!) and shows that your company stands behind its values. As Desmond Tutu once said, “if you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”
2 Change your purchasing practices Earlier this week, Dartmouth restaurant Dear Friend did just this by taking its lobster roll off the menu and replacing it with an item whose proceeds will go towards front-line Mi’kmaq activists. If your lobster comes from a business like Clearwater, who in 2019 faced fines for leaving 3,800 traps illegally in the Bay of Fundy, you may want to rethink your choices. Nix the lobster, or find an ethical source.
3Make a donation
Put your money where your mouth is. There are longstanding groups like the Mi’kmaw Native Friendship Centre, as well as local groups like Radstorm who are getting supplies to the activists camped out on the wharves. You could donate the proceeds of a single menu item, a percentage of your entire profit, or start a tip jar for donations to the cause.
4Educate yourselves
If you don’t feel connected to the issue, now’s the time to get connected. Whether you’re a settler whose family came here 300 years ago, or a newcomer who immigrated here yourself, you are living on unceded Mi’kmaq land. Take the time to read the history of the treaties, read Indigenous news sources like Ku’ku’kwes News and APTN, and for god’s sake, don’t ask your Indigenous friend’s to educate you.
5 Ask your Indigenous employees how you can support them
Ask if they need time off, if they need space, and if they need you to shut down any racist bullshit they’re putting up with. If you don’t have Indigenous employees, maybe look into that. Your restaurant can partner with Indigenous chefs to create authentic rather than appropriative dishes. You can make the to switch Indigenous suppliers and vendors, who have a history and connection with the land our prized “local” ingredients come from.
This article appears in Sep 1-30, 2020.
naw, neither the natives or government wants to define an adequate living.
1. other fishers are not the oppressors. we have rights too.
2. You shouldn’t buy lobster from Clearwater anyways, unless the person who owns your restaurant is named Risley, which is about half of them in Halifax. Another note, even though it was extremely wrong of them to do it offshore, they did not store lobster traps in the bay of fundy, they don’t have a license there, just to point out further the shady, ignorant journalism here.
3. Here is the supreme court decision stating that all commercial fisheries are subject to federal regulations since you forgot to include the most important piece of all this in your article.
https://www.canlii.org/…/1999canlii666/1999canlii666.html
I have a better idea, how about you educate yourself on WHY the commercial fishermen are concerned enough to do something this drastic and why they went to the St.Marys Bay specifically! Commercial lobster fishing is highly regulated in order to conserve and protect the species. The stock has been doing very well and Nova Scotia is recognized and respected world wide for their success with ensuring sustainability. The St. Mary’s bay however, has shown the stock is down more than 65% in the past 3 years alone so it’s a huge and legitimate area of concern. This area is a lobster nursery you might say, the lobsters migrate there during these months (closed season) to molt and spawn. Molting lobsters are soft shelled and can’t tolerate being in traps and handled (they die) and the females have eggs attached to their under bodies and need to be left alone to do their thing. This is why there are a variety of open/closed seasons in different areas for commercial fishing, so the lobsters are safe during their most vulnerable/reproductive time in each given area. The indigenous community have been fishing there in the bay for food and ceremonial purposes unhindered all along but it is a major concern to see even more traps going in the water beyond what they normally fish with knowing the stock is already in trouble there. I’d be remiss to mention there is actually thousands of traps in the bay that are not being talked about in the media.
Allowing ANYONE to aggressively fish anywhere and everywhere with no regulation in place to protect the species will impact the stock overall, for everyone! The Marshall 2 clarification following the instating of the treaty agreement clearly states – “The federal and provincial governments have the authority within their respective legislative fields to regulate the exercise of a treaty right where justified on conservation or other grounds”. THIS… is what the fishermen are asking for. Lobster fishing is the backbone of the Nova Scotia economy, it affects every one of us either directly or indirectly. If the stock is not protected we’re all going to pay the price down the road if the stock is allowed to be over fished and not within regulations that have proven to be successful. Choose who you’re supporting for the right reasons, Nova Scotia’s future depends on it!