Letters to the Editor
Globe and Mail
444 Front St. W.
Toronto, Ontario M5V 2S9

Dear Editor:

Re: "Swallowing Dhaliwal hook, line and sinker", August 22, 2000

As an apologist for those who would fish lobster during a closed season, Parker Barss Donham, treats ordinary fishermen as the enemy. Such fishermen are men and women of great courage and skill who are not deserving of the scorn that he heaps on them, all the while romanticizing those who would scoop up tens of thousands of lobster during their most vulnerable period.

Mr. Donham questions why DFO fishery officers would seek to enforce conservation laws against natives who openly defy the law and set traps during a closed period, essential for reproduction and moulting. Instead, he would do well to question why the Minister has agreed to a 40,000 lb quota during a period so sensitive to the life cycle of Miramichi Bay lobster.

He may wish to re-read the unanimous decision of the Supreme Court of Canada in Marshall II. The Court in its clarification stated, without equivocation: "the paramount regulatory objective is conservation and responsibility is placed squarely on the Minister responsible and not on the aboriginal or non-aboriginal users of the resource". To demand that the Minister "[sit] down with the Mi'kmaq as equals" is not merely a misreading of the decision but mischievous in that it implies that the Court recognized the natives as having a co-equal role with the Minister of Fisheries with regard to conservation.

Perhaps more damming is Mr. Donham's continued refusal to read the many references in the clarification to the limited nature of the first Marshall decision, when it referenced: "a local Mi'kmaq treaty right to carry on a small scale commercial eel fishery", "the majority judgment of September 17, 1999 was limited to the issues necessary to dispose of the appellant's guilt or innocence", "the appellant established that the collective treaty right held by his community allowed him to fish for eels", "the decision in this particular prosecution is authority only for the matters adjudicated upon", "in this case, the prosecution of the appellant was directed to a closed season in the eel fishery...and that is the precise context in which the majority decision of September 17, 1999 is to be understood".

Regrettably Mr. Donham ignores the danger to fragile lobster stocks that would be caused by the thousands of illegal native traps during this sensitive period in the lobster's reproductive cycle by implying that the number of native traps is "less than two-tenths of 1 percent of the white total". In fact, the Court noted that careful attention must be paid to the cumulative effect of native fishing concentrated in a particular area and expressed doubts about the usefulness of province-wide or regional participation rates. It stated "that a fishery that is minuscule on a provincial or regional basis could nevertheless raise conservation issues on a local level if it were concentrated in vulnerable fishing grounds".

Fisheries scientists have already informed the Federal Court of the danger to lobster stocks of additional lobster traps on the vulnerable fishing grounds of Miramichi Bay: "any increase in the number of traps in LFA 23 is equivalent to an increase in fishing effort and goes against the conservation objectives of increasing egg production and reducing fishing effort".

Rather than romanticizing wide-spread lawlessness, Mr. Donham would do well to remember that the protection of fragile lobster stocks is in everyone's interest, native and non-native alike.

Yours sincerely,

John Cummins, M.P.
Delta-South Richmond