Fishing

“When the decline in the fishing industry threatened the economic development of the We Wai Kai Nation, it took over its own land code. This allowed the Nation to take full advantage of new economic opportunities to the benefit of their members as well as surrounding communities.”

Article shows how Native entrepreneurs have to not only overcome regulatory and economic difficulties, but also the moral dilemmas of breaking social norms. The business analyzed involved selling smoked, filleted and whole char to both wholesale and retail customers. In the north, sharing of food among people is a social norm given to how hard it is to survive there.

"The following case study presents sustainable community economic development (SCED) as one path for achieving sustainable development within the setting of a fishing-dependent First Nations community along Canada's Pacific coastline. The study is based on the author's Masters research at Simon Fraser University as well as subsequent related research and development projects (1999-2001). The purpose of the initial study was to examine if and how a fishing-dependent community (Alert Bay, British Columbia) can utilize fisheries co-management as one component of an overall SCED strategy.

"The Aboriginal peoples of Canada stand in a different legal relationship to the fisheries than non-Aboriginal Canadians. They do so by virtue of a long history with the fisheries that precedes non-Aboriginal settlement in North America, and because of the constitutional entrenchment of Aboriginal and treaty rights in Canadian law.

"The Labrador Inuit Land Claims Agreement sets out Inuit fishing, hunting, trapping and gathering rights in the Labrador Inuit Settlement Area (LISA) and makes specific provisions for those who live outside of LISA. Harvesting issues are managed by the Renewable Resources division."

The following ethnographies were researched and compiled by Mi'kmaw students hired through Aboriginal L.I.N.K.S. Each is a compendium of information about Nova Scotia reserves with regard to physical description including size, location, and proximity to other towns or villages; what businesses and other concerns comprise the reserves, including private businesses and band operated businesses; services and facilities available in the communities; and the names of the people who make up the band councils, administration, and educational institutions.

In Delgamuukw v. British Columbia, the Supreme Court of Canada affirmed the inherent meaning of Aboriginal tenure (or title) and acknowledged its role in constitutional analysis. The message from the modern framers of the constitution of Canada and the Lamer Court is that Aboriginal law, tenure and rights as well as treaty rights constitute a distinct constitutional order in s. 35(1) of the Constitution Act, 1982, with its own implicate architecture, sources, traditions, and texts, that require constitutional equality with the other parts.