Contested Waters: The Struggle for Rights and Reconciliation in the Atlantic Fishery

A timely anthology featuring diverse perspectives – Indigenous and non-Indigenous – on the right to fish in the Atlantic, with the goal of creating dialogue and solutions.

Canadians were shocked in the fall of 2020 by news coverage of non-Indigenous crowds threatening Mi'kmaw fish harvesters and burning boats and plant buildings in southwest Nova Scotia. The crisis began when a few Mi'kmaq Nations began to issue their own licenses to community members to conduct small-scale lobster fishing to earn "moderate livelihoods", a treaty right recognized in the Marshall ruling. Non-Indigenous harvesters reacted, some of them violently, against the idea of a new fishery operating outside DFO-regulated licensing, seasons, and fishing zones. With the major issues still unresolved, numerous flashpoints hold potential for future conflict. The question now looms: where do we go from here?

With contributions from Mi'kmaw leaders, academic researchers, legal experts, non-Indigenous industry leaders, and other knowledgeable observers on all sides of the conflict, Contested Waters: The Struggle for Rights and Reconciliation in the Atlantic Fishery provides a respectful and realistic examination of Indigenous and non-Indigenous perspectives with the goal of encouraging dialogue and a shared search for lasting solutions.

Richard Williams is President of Praxis Research and Consulting Ltd., as well as the Research Director for the Canadian Council of Fish Harvesters. He is the Project Director for an ACOA-funded research and consultation project on labour supply and intergenerational succession challenges in the Atlantic Canada fish harvesting industry. From 2009 -13, he served as Deputy Minister to the Premier for Policy and Priorities, Province of Nova Scotia. He is also the author of A Future for the Fishery: Crisis and Renewal in Canada's Neglected Fishing Industry.

Fred Wien holds a professor emeritus appointment at Dalhousie University. A former Director of the Maritime School of Social Work, he was seconded in the 1992 – 96 period to the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples serving as Deputy Director of Research. He was appointed to the Order of Canada in 2015.