Jamie Sarkonak: One law for First Nations, another for everyone else

Lucy the Lobster sits on her Groundhog Day weather predicting perch. Photo by KATHY JOHNSON/PNI Atlantic News

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There are two kinds of lobster trappers in St. Mary’s Bay, Nova Scotia: the non-Indigenous ones who have to abide by federal law, and the Indigenous ones who apparently don’t. The Liberal approach to governing the fishery has bred tension and violence between the two — and a recent Nova Scotia Supreme Court decision shows that we’re far from seeing it resolved.

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The case had been brought by the Unified Fisheries Conservation Alliance, a group of commercial fishermen who banded together to ask the court to formally declare whether or not Indigenous lobster trappers were exempt from federal fishing rules in St. Mary’s Bay. On July 3, the court dismissed the action before it could even proceed to trial: the Unified Fisheries Conservation Alliance, ruled Justice Ann Smith, didn’t have standing to bring the case.

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So, the question as to whether the rules actually apply to Indigenous people remains unanswered.

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As it currently stands, the local Sipekne’katik First Nation’s “self-managed” fishery is practically exempt from federal fisheries rules. It was opened by the nation in 2020 after years of failed negotiations with the feds; instead of waiting to find a compromise, the Sipekne’katik took matters into their own hands, distributed their own licences and tags, and began harvesting out of season. Out-of-season fishing to support a “moderate livelihood” is permitted for the Nova Scotia Mi’kmaq, which includes the Sipekne’katik, through the Peace and Friendship Treaties of 1760 and 1761 — but the trouble lies with defining that word. The Sipekne’katik view it as a right of their people to fish commercially, while the more popular conception sees it as a right to personal harvest.

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While the federal fisheries minister at the time, Bernadette Jordan, condemned the rogue move — “there cannot be a commercial fishery outside the commercial season” — the outlaw fishery was never shut down. If it were any other group doing the fishing, this would be called “poaching.”

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Within a month of the illegal fishery’s launch, Sipekne’katik boats were already being vandalized; the chief leading the project complained of $1.5 million in losses and indicated that pressure by non-Indigenous buyers had limited his own community’s ability to sell its catch. The years that have followed have seen riots, intimidation, equipment sabotage, physical fights, and even arson of lobster pounds.

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By 2023, local members of Parliament Chris d’Entremont (a Conservative at the time, now a Liberal) and Rick Perkins (a Conservative who lost his seat in 2025), wrote to Minister Jordan about their concerns over “the current situation in St. Mary’s Bay,” specifically, reports of “upwards of 50 boats pulling hundreds of thousands of pounds of lobster per day.”

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The response by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans to such claims is usually some variation of “we’re enforcing the rules.” Indeed, its reply to the Conservative MPs referred to multiple arrests, releases, and trap seizures for fishing violations. It’s hard, however, to find instances where these enforcement actions end up in court, and beyond that, end with a conviction.