MP Defends Minister's Approach To Mi'kmaw Fishery Disputes

SYDNEY RIVER - The Member of Parliament for Cape Breton-Canso is defending the approach of federal Fisheries Minister Bernardette Jordan in addressing a series of issues involving the moderate livelihood fisheries carried out by Mi'kmaw communities in two parts of the province over a tumultuous two-month period.

Mike Kelloway spoke to TELILE 24/7 host-producer Adam Cooke shortly after participating in an emergency debate over the indigenous fishery issue in the House of Commons. The parliamentary discussion followed a period that has seen DFO officials remove lobster traps set in St. Peter's Bay by fishermen from Potlotek First Nation, resulting in a protest at the nearest DFO office in Lennox Passage, Richmond County. The debate also addressed an often-violent clash between non-native fishermen and members of the Sipekne'katik First Nation who have been attemptong to carry out their own moderate livelihood lobster fishery in Yarmouth and Digby Counties. 

While some representatives of these communities, including Potlotek First Nations Chief Wilbert Marshall, have taken the Fisheries Minister to task and suggested that she is not responding quickly enough to the developments in Nova Scotia, MP Kelloway defended his Nova Scotia Liberal caucus colleague and said she has always made herself available to hear his own concerns and suggestions on this issue. 

"She has demonstrated an immense overture to meet with me and discuss what's going on, and also for me to provide the opportunities for solutions that I hear from all sides of the equation," Kelloway declared. 

"Crisis reveals character, and I think the people of Canada and the people or her riding and the people of my riding would look at how she's dealing with an issue that's been on the radar for the past 20 years, well before she became the minister...She's out there with quiet diplomacy."

Kelloway also urged for calm on the waters of St. Peter's Bay and southwestern Nova Scotia, even as Sipekne'katik Chief Mike Sack is threatening to disrupt the non-native lobster fishery when it takes to the waters in the coming days. 

"Right now, tensions are high, there's no doubt about that," Kelloway acknowledged. 

"But there isn't an MP on any side of the equation that would tolerate violence and racism...There's a genuine interest and an effort to meet with their constituents in the fishery sector to address these issues quickly."