Premier Stephen McNeil says questions around moderate livelihood fisheries cannot be solved one community at a time.
That following a second band’s exit from the Assembly of Nova Scotia Mi’kmaw Chiefs over the issue.
Both Sipekne’katik and Membertou left the organisation this month.
McNeil says Mi’kmaw First Nations’ right to moderate livelihood has been affirmed by the Supreme Court, but the federal government is responsible to what that means.
“The federal government has a responsibility to integrate it into our commercial fishery, a fishery that currently exists, to regulate it, to manage it,” he says. “That includes the commercial fishermen, so to me, the way to find the right solution to this is to have everyone at the table.”
McNeil says the Peace and Friendships Treaties were signed with groups across historical Mi’kma’ki, a region that spanned the province, to PEI and New Brunswick, and down into Maine.
He says this means representatives from all Mi’kmaw bands need to be involved and a decision cannot be made on a community-by-community basis.
“Without including all other communities, which would mean the Assembly here and connections beyond, and then people representing the fishery.”
McNeil says the province will not change licenses to allow moderate livelihood catches to be legally sold in the province until a definition of moderate livelihood has been made by the federal government.
