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Nighttime provides ideal cover for acts of sabotage in the sleepy fishing villages along the southern shores of Nova Scotia.<\/p>\n
Slashed buoys, stolen lobster crates, mysterious fires. These are just some of the acts of vandalism on the wharves where lobster fishers have been locked in battle for more than three decades.<\/p>\n
Lobstermen have a simple way of framing the dispute: Think of the ocean\u2019s bounty like a pie. They are asking who should get a piece, and what is the fairest way to divide it between the white Canadians who built the commercial lobster industry, and the Indigenous people who were historically left out.<\/p>\n
The federal government, which regulates fisheries, has been reluctant to settle the politically fraught issue, alienating warring fishermen on both sides.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
The conflict has created deep ruptures within fishing communities. Criminals have entered the equation, the authorities say, profiting from the illegal fishing and trading of lobsters.<\/p>\n
The dispute raises thorny questions about Indigenous rights, economic equity, the conservation of resources and the future of Canada\u2019s lobster industry.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Stormy weather muffled the sound of a bullet piercing Geoffrey Jobert\u2019s house.<\/p>\n
He woke up, he said, to the damage in November at his home in Clare, a community on the southwest shore of Nova Scotia, along the coast of St. Mary\u2019s Bay, where the waters are especially rich with lobster.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a warning shot,\u201d Mr. Jobert said of the bullet that ended up tearing into a wall just above an armchair.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Mr. Jobert, 30, operates a family-owned seafood distributor that packs live lobster for export.<\/p>\n
He believes he was targeted for ignoring repeated orders over the last year to do business with people in the lobster industry whom he believed had ties to criminals. He said he had received threatening text messages, followed by an in-person visit by two men.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
The police have charged the two men with several crimes in connection to his case, including extortion and criminal harassment.<\/p>\n
The episode involving Mr. Jobert is part of what the authorities say is a pattern of violence that has rocked the area: unsolved arsons, including of a historic sawmill<\/a> in June and the torching of a police car<\/a> one month later, as well as shootings into the homes of other fishermen.<\/p>\n The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said a criminal organization, with a core group of less than 10 locals, was largely behind the violence.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Their scheme, the authorities say, focuses on buying lobsters that Indigenous fishermen catch in the summer. Harvesting lobsters during the summer is illegal because that\u2019s when they reproduce, but Indigenous fisherman have special permission because of historical treaty rights.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n But strict rules prohibit them from selling their haul.<\/p>\n The lobsters eventually wind up in restaurants and stores across the province. Lobster fishers who refuse to cooperate with the criminal group have become targets, the authorities said.<\/p>\n \u201cI was expecting a small, little, quaint village, but I\u2019ve got big city problems,\u201d said Sgt. Jeff LeBlanc of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, who became the local commander in Clare in 2020.<\/p>\n The lobster battle has embroiled Indigenous lobstermen from the Sipekne\u2019katik First Nation after they set up a commercial fishery in Clare to assert what they say are ancestral rights to catch \u2014 and sell \u2014 lobster all year long.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cWe have a right to be here,\u201d said Shelley Paul, a lobster fisher from the Sipekne\u2019katik group, which has also sued Canada\u2019s government over the summer lobster rules.<\/p>\n But criminals posing as lobster dealers, according to locals, started doing business with some of the Indigenous fishermen.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n A maritime fishing union, helped by private detectives, has traced illicit lobster shipments \u2014 mostly conducted at night \u2014 to local businesses, according to a lawsuit filed by the union against several firms.<\/p>\n The union also says government officials have not done enough to target the illicit trade.<\/p>\n \u201cThis organized crime group has seen an opportunity and a door opened to possibly exploit and fund their criminal organization with the trade and sale of that seafood, which can be very profitable,\u201d Sgt. LeBlanc said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n But policing unauthorized fishing is a top priority, said Debbie Buott-Matheson, a spokeswoman for Canada\u2019s Department of Fisheries and Oceans. \u201cEnforcement activity is not always visible,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Jean-Claude Comeau, a machinist who runs a marine hydraulic company in Clare, said the tension in the community had become suffocating.<\/p>\n \u201cSomebody\u2019s going to get killed,\u201d Mr. Comeau said. \u201cI\u2019m surprised it hasn\u2019t happened.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Nova Scotia, a province of just over one million people, is Canada\u2019s top seafood producer, with annual exports valued at 2.6 billion Canadian dollars, or $1.8 billion, largely because of lobsters.<\/p>\n In the 1700s, the Mi\u2019kmaq, an Indigenous group on Canada\u2019s east coast, signed treaties with the British colonial government promising them rights to hunt and fish. For the seasonally nomadic Mi\u2019kmaq, that meant hunting inland during the winter, and moving to the coast to fish in the summer.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Canada did not recognize those rights for decades as various fisheries and regulations were established, including the banning of lobster harvesting during the summer.<\/p>\n The summertime restrictions were successfully challenged in the 1990s in Canada\u2019s highest court by a Mi\u2019kmaq fisherman who had appealed illegal fishing charges.<\/p>\n The Canadian supreme court, in 1999, ruled that treaty rights allowed Indigenous people to fish during the summer and earn a moderate livelihood. But the court never defined what a moderate livelihood meant, leaving that up to the federal government.<\/p>\n The government, however, has only gone as far as granting individual lobster licenses to Indigenous groups allowing them to catch lobsters in the summer, while limiting commercial sales to lobsters harvested during the legally permitted fishing season from November to May.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The piecemeal approach angered Indigenous fisherman who cite ancestral rights to make a living selling summer lobsters, while the non-Indigenous were unhappy because they claim that summer fishing was depleting lobster stocks and hurting their livelihood.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cThe government of Canada has basically walked on tippy toes around Indigenous folks from the very beginning,\u201d said Ken Coates, a historian who has studied Indigenous fishing rights. \u201cThey have been very, very cautious about enforcing much on the First Nations.\u201d<\/p>\n The Sipekne\u2019katik First Nation opened its commercial fishery in Clare in 2020, pointing to the treaties that predated the formation of Canada to claim a right to catch and sell lobster throughout the year.<\/p>\nOld Problems, New Players<\/h2>\n