Episode 10: Treaty Relations and Environmental Politics in Canada
Channel: Ecopolitics Podcast
Date: 2020-10-21

What does it mean to be a treaty partner in Canada today? In this episode we speak with Dr. Sherry Pictou and Dr. Martha Stiegman about two documentary films they created together: In Defense of our Treaties, and We Story the Land. Through the conversation, we learn how the Mi’kmaq have worked to maintain treaty rights over their land and fisheries in the fact of colonialism, neoliberalism, and what Sherry terms the "recolonization" of her people in the wake of Supreme Court of Canada decisions that affirm Indigenous rights. Sherry and Martha's work together bears witness to the resistance, and the cultural resurgence, that figure centrally in this work.

NOTE: Three weeks after this interview was recorded, Sipekne’katik First Nation, a Mi’kmaq community roughly 2 hrs drive from L’sitkuk/Bear River, launched a livelihood lobster in Saint Mary’s Bay - under their own Mi’kmaq First Nation jurisdiction. The date was September 17th, the 21st anniversary of the Marshall Decision. Under the First Nation’s lobster management plan, five initial licences were issued in ceremony, with 50 traps each. 

To date, the response from non-Indigenous fishers in the region echoes the violent racist backlash of 1999 that greeted Mi’kmaq fishers when they took to the water, exercising their inherent rights to fish – rights enshrined in the Peace and Friendship Treaties, and affirmed by the Marshall Decision. In Defense of our Treaties, one of the films discussed in this podcast, details the remarkable conflict resolution and cross-cultural relationship building that that took place between Mi’kmaq and non-Indigenous fisheries leaders in the area following Marshall. Unfortunately at this time, those relationships are not dominant. 

For more information about the launch of Sipekne’katik First Nation’s livelihood fishery, see:
https://www.aptnnews.ca/national-news/mikmaq-lobster-boats-surrounded-by-acadian-commercial-fishing-vessels-as-traps-are-stolen-cut/
https://www.aptnnews.ca/national-news/canada-ragging-the-puck-on-first-nations-fishing-rights-mp-says/
https://www.aptnnews.ca/investigates/fishing-reconciliation-mikmaq/