Tag Archives: Millbrook First Nation

Mi’kmaw fisherman using 1752 treaty, ancestry in legal battle with DFO

Matthew Cope, 36, of the Millbrook First Nation near Truro, N.S. says he has proof Mi’kmaw Grand Chief Jean Baptiste Cope, who signed the Peace and Friendship Treaty of 1752 on behalf of the Mi’kmaq, is his direct relative. “So I have a 50-page lineage that was done up by the Confederacy (of Mainland Mi’kmaq). And it took years to make where it shows that I’m a direct descendant of Jean Baptiste Cope. So I am, in fact, the tribe of Indians that 1752 treaty signed for,” Cope explained. The Mi’kmaw fisherman says he intends to use this evidence to fight federal fishery charges against him in Digby Provincial Court. He is currently representing himself against charges that he illegally fished for lobster in waters near Digby during a closed commercial fishery. >click to read< 14:40

Mi’kmaw harvester wants lobsters seized by DFO accounted for

A Mi’kmaw lobster harvester wants to know what happened to his lobster after finally getting his fishing gear back from DFO,,, The gear had been sitting in a federal fisheries compound since then, and Matt Cope of Millbrook First Nation spent months trying to get it back. When Cope unloaded his gear this week, he was shocked to find damaged traps with ropes cut. “Traps aren’t cheap, ropes not cheap,” he said. “When they’re taking it for months at a time, and just all of a sudden giving it back when it’s all damaged, there’s no way we can fish like that.” >click to read< 08:50

Nova Scotia Mi’kmaw lobster harvester to file an injunction against DFO for seizing traps

“I’m going to get (my lawyer) to file an injunction on my behalf preventing the DFO from violating my rights until they get this moderate livelihood stuff settled,” Matthew Cope, 34, said. Cope, who is from the Millbrook First Nation, said he left the wharf in Digby, N.S. on Aug. 29 to check on his lobster traps when he saw DFO officers aboard the Canadian Coast Guard Vessel, The Earl Grey, seizing 60 of his traps. “We had ten trawls of fifteen each. They took six of them. We caught them in the middle of taking our trawls so I stood up beside them and I said, ‘What are you guys doing?’” Cope explained. “I have a pre-existing inherited treaty right for fishing and I have a right to do so unhindered,” he said. >click to read< 21:46

Stacey Marshall Tabor – ‘I just want to run a boat’ – Millbrook First Nation human rights ruling appeal dismissed

stacey-marshall-taborA Nova Scotian Mi’kmaq woman who won a human rights complaint against her community says she “feels vindicated” after a federal court dismissed an attempt by the Millbrook band to overturn the tribunal’s decision. Stacey Marshall Tabor has spent the past decade years fighting the band for her right to work in the local fishing industry and says as a parent, she felt she had to make a stand. “I put myself in a position that I had to stand up for these women, for all these young girls,” she said. “I have a daughter, she’s watching me 24-7. What if I had bowed down and said, ‘oh yeah, ok you can shove me around.’ Wouldn’t have looked good, would it, as a mother.” “I just want to run a boat and I want to have full access like every other man in that fishery to the fisheries,” she said. Read the story here 11:02

Stacey Marshall Tabor to head out fishing after human rights complaint win

A Nova Scotia woman who won a human rights complaint against her home community for denying her a fishing licence because of her gender is heading out to sea after all. Stacey Marshall Tabor says the Millbrook First Nation informed her on Tuesday that she would be sailing as a deckhand on a snow crab boat. The assignment came after years of infighting that culminated in a discrimination finding by the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal. Read the rest here 20:25

First Nations woman wins discrimination battle over fishing captain licence

The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal has ruled that a Nova Scotia aboriginal community discriminated against a female member by denying her work in the local fishing industry because of her gender. The tribunal also said Tabor was subjected to derogatory remarks, citing an instance when a senior band member said “the only place for women’s breasts on a boat was on the bow as a figurehead.” Read the rest here 11:40