Seafood Company Owner Says It’s Unfair To Call Commercial Fishermen Racists
The owner of a Shag Harbour, Nova Scotia, seafood wholesaler is defending himself, and his business, after making a series of controversial Facebook posts about the Nova Scotia lobster dispute.
For several weeks, the Facebook page belonging to Atlantic Canada Seafood has been filled with posts supporting the commercial lobster fishermen in Southwestern Nova Scotia, and critical of the Mi’kmaq moderate livelihood fishery which launched in September by the Sipekne’katik First Nation.
Nathan Cooke, the owner of the wholesaler, says he and his 12 employees have received death threats because of the Facebook posts, and there have been calls to boycott his business.
Cooke claims that neither he nor the lobster fishermen are racist. Cooke also says he supports the Mi’kmaq right to fish in their native waters, as laid out in treaty agreements with Canada. But he believes fishing should happen within the DFO-defined seasons, for the sake of conservation.
“I ‘100 percent’ agree with the treaty rights, there’s no dispute there. They ‘100 percent’ have the right to fish. The issue is it hasn’t been defined yet; it’s unregulated.”
“No one is denying them access and anyone would buy off them (in season), any buyer.”
RELATED: Sipekne’katik Chief Threatening To Disrupt Commercial Lobster Fishery This Year
A lot of the Facebook content on the company’s site are reposts of news articles and opinions dealing with the lobster dispute. Some of the content, however, can be interpreted as defending the commercial fishermen’s more questionable tactics.
On Oct. 18, Atlantic Canada Seafood reposted a quote from a “Donna L Larkin” which dismissed the severity of commercial fishermen destroying Mi’kmaq lobster catches. Larkin states that, because the lobster is frozen, it is already dead, and she blames the media for spreading false information.
“THE MEDIA IS RUNNING WILD WITH THIS INFORMATION. I don’t know about anyone else, but I have never seen anything frozen that is still alive when taken out of a freezer. It’s time the media put their brain to use before publishing these false reports,” writes Larkin.
Atlantic Canada Seafood wrote “Some valid points here” when posting Larkin’s opinion.
On October 17, the company reposted a long statement from the Atlantic Canada Fishermen’s Association about the dispute. The statement pushes back against accusations of racism and chastises the media for how the industry has been portrayed.
But the Association also goes on a nine-paragraph tangent about how much money the federal government spends on Indigenous people in Canada. It even alleges that the government spends more money on Indigenous Canadians than non-Indigenous.
“There are nearly 30 federal departments and agencies that give money to aboriginal Canadians. Together, all federal spending on First Nations and First Peoples is closer to $13,000 per capita,” reads the statement.
“The entire federal budget for non-aboriginal persons is $7,295 each per year. That means Ottawa spends about 75% more for every aboriginal citizen than it spends on non-aboriginals.”
“Again, that’s probably justifiable, but it is also a fact that aboriginal communities and individuals are not underfunded.”
This Facebook post by Atlantic Canada seafood received 1,400 comments and 2,700 shares.
Cooke believes the blame for the lobster dispute lays mostly with the federal government. It’s been 21 years since the first Marshall decision, yet the government hasn’t defined, yet, what a moderate livelihood fishery should be.
“It all revolves around the federal government,” said Cooke. “There’s no one more to blame than Bernadette Jordan right now, and Justin Trudeau, for their lack of action.”
“Then you got Jagmeet Singh making comments that we are all terrorists. And rather than resolving the issue, all that did… was engage in the conflict.”
Cooke has also been critical of media coverage on the lobster dispute. He claims some First Nations’ fishermen have been harvesting lobster out-of-season for years now, yet the media has been commenting as if this is the first year it’s been happening.
“We’ve all been waiting 21 years to have this (moderate livelihood) defined. But it’s not like this is something new. This is a yearly event that’s been happening for 21 years also,” claims Cooke.
“The team of us and the fishermen are pointing out that…there’s just a lot here going on and the media isn’t quite covering it all.”
Sipekne’katik First Nation Chief, Mike Sack, said he is aware of the Facebook Posts made by Atlantic Canada Seafood. But the Chief says he stopped paying attention to them quickly, after seeing content he deemed offensive.
“The post I’ve seen. I didn’t bother at all (with the company) after I had seen it,” he said.
When asked if Cooke was right that the moderate livelihood fishery has been going on for more than just this year, Sack said, “our people have been fishing there for a very long time.”
What bothers Cooke most about the media coverage is how the fishermen, and the region, have been called racists. Cooke pushes back against that assertion, saying the fishing industry, like Canada itself, is diverse and multicultural.
“Anyone who questions this industry, in regards to the native fishery, is labelled a racist. We just want to know the plan that Mike Sack has and other bands,” said Cooke.
“The problem is, it’s being labeled as white people are racist. But we live in the most multicultural country in the world…it’s a large group of people that come from different ethnicities that are actually in this industry.”
It is, however, hard to dispute that racism has played a factor in the conflict, especially when it comes to the most violent incidents. On October 13, two lobster pounds in Southwestern Nova Scotia were surrounded by commercial fishermen and their supporters. The RCMP estimates that crowds of 200 people showed up at each location.
During the incidents, two vehicles were torched. Some Mi’kmaq people have alleged verbal and physical harassment from the mob while being surrounded, including racial taunts being yelled at them.
The RCMP didn’t make any arrests on October 13, despite the violence and intimidation the Mi’kmaq people faced. The response by the RCMP has been denounced as inadequate, and an example of systemic racism.
When asked if he believes these incidents are linked to racism, Cooke said he doesn’t have enough infoformation to make a judgment on what happened. He also said there are “extremists on both sides.”
“I don’t know all the facts yet to form a proper opinion on that,” said Cooke. “I would assume that on both sides, there have been extremists involved here.”
Chief Sack, however, believes that racism has been a factor in the ongoing dispute. He points to various messages he has received over the past month that use bigoted language.
“They say we don’t belong there and that we get everything for free and we don’t work, and we’re lazy,” said Sack on a typical message he would receive.
“I get a ton of messages from commercial fishermen. Most of it is about race. It’s unfortunate… DFO and the RCMP are going at it with systemic racism on top of it all…They’ve been exposed to the world for the stuff they are doing and now they are trying to back-paddle.”
Despite the backlash against Atlantic Canada Seafood, Cooke says his company’s Facebook page will keep commenting on the dispute.
“I will call out the government…and if the media is being biased, I will call that out also,” he said.