Native fishery on Grand Manan seeks to resolve financial woes

It wasn't long after NeGoot-Gook Fisheries acting manager Amy Moulton left Grand Manan for a new job in Nova Scotia that rumours began to fly on the island as to the fisheries' financial stability. On February 13, Moulton returned to meet with Edwin Bernard, the portfolio holder for the Tobique fisheries, only to find he hadn't shown up.

While Moulton declined to comment on just where the Native fisheries stood, she did state, "I have arranged with the buyers to keep the boats and the fishermen fishing, until Edwin Bernard tells them what his plans as new management will be." When asked what information the fishermen who work for NeGoot-Gook Fisheries had been given about the situation, Captain Herbert Middleton said, "We don't know anything. Everything is up in the air, but I know what I'm going to do -- just keep fishing."

The once celebrated Native fisheries on Grand Manan have gone through a very hard birth. The $1.3 million NeGoot-Gook Fisheries Centre at Ingalls Head opened in the fall of 2002, employing several islanders, along with Maliseet fishermen from the Tobique reserve, located near Perth Andover, N.B.

Watching the financial troubles on the Tobique First Nations reserve, which includes a truck-stop project having its own financial woes, the Grand Manan community held a collective breath waiting to see how outstanding balances would impact an already weak island economy. Within days cheques bounced, and rumours ran rampant as to whether the Native fisheries operation was done.

Tim Bear, a spokesperson for Edwin Bernard, said in an interview that Bernard had been on the island earlier to assess the fishery and where it stood. He said Bernard has decided to hire a restructuring firm and is already working on setting up a plan to pay any outstanding debts. With no people from the Tobique reserve actually fishing the boats now, Bear spoke of how the new restructuring would consider how to benefit both the Tobique and Grand Manan communities.

Meetings were held all weekend, February 16-17, and finally Bernard and his management team arrived Wednesday night, February 20, with meetings scheduled with Grand Manan fish buyers and other community businesses with which they hope to work. The fisheries operation is being placed in a trust framework and is expected to meet all its financial obligations. Nick Paul said, "We have every reason to believe that NeGoot-Gook Fisheries has a bright future, and it will be an opportunity to create new partnerships and strengthen relationships on Grand Manan."

The fisheries came about as a response to the 1999 Marshall ruling by the Supreme Court of Canada, which among other things confirmed native rights to fishing.

Commenting on what may be contributing to the hard times for the NeGoot-Gook Fisheries, Rupert Lambert, a fisherman from North Head, stated, "A lot of fishermen here do not understand why a Maliseet fishery was set up in traditional Passamaquoddy territory."

Many Grand Manan fishermen believe their families are descendants of the Passamaquoddy Tribe and that the Passamaquoddy were going to be included in the Native fisheries operation that was established on the island. For years a Passamaquoddy peoples group on Grand Manan has been trying to obtain official recognition from the federal government.