RCMP Looking for Two Men Seen in Video Near Torched Lobster Pound

Nova Scotia RCMP are looking to identify two young men captured on video surveillance lurking behind a lobster pound near midnight, when flames broke out at the facility in Middle West Pubnico on Oct. 16. 

The suspicious blaze capped weeks of violence in the lobster fishing mecca of southwest Nova Scotia, with commercial fisherman objecting to the opening of an Indigenous-led fishery outside of the commercial fishing season. Mi’kmaq people have a treaty-protected right to fish and hunt to earn a “moderate livelihood.” 

Federal ministers decried the racist attacks and criticized the Mounties’ lacklustre response to the escalating violence. 

The footage, released by the RCMP Friday, shows a blonde man, gingerly walking over gravel in bare feet and shorts. Another man in a beige hoodie guides him along, holding a pair of purple latex gloves. 

Police hope that by releasing the surveillance footage someone who knows the men in the close-knit fishing communities will come forward. RCMP spokesman Sgt. Andrew Joyce said police are frustrated by a lack of cooperation in the community.

“We have a large police presence there and we have come in contact with incidents where… the persons we felt could have information did not provide us with the information,” said Sgt. Joyce. “Some have been seemingly resistant to cooperate.” 

A suspicious fire flattened the lobster pound where Mi’kmaq fishermen had been storing their catch, leaving one man, who police describe as a person of interest, in the hospital with life threatening injuries. Sgt. Joyce would not say whether the man in hospital is one of the two in the surveillance video. 

The skirmish flared up in September after the Mi’kmaq community, Sipekne’katik First Nation, launched its own self-regulated lobster fishery in southwest Nova Scotia. Mi’kmaq rights to hunt, fish and gather for a moderate living are constitutionally-protected by treaties dating back to 1760, and reaffirmed by the 1999 Supreme Court of Canada Marshall decision. In a statement about the conflict, the Canadian government said it’s dedicated to implementing this right. 

However, commercial fishermen in the area were angry that the band members were fishing outside of the federally-regulated commercial season, which runs from the end of November to the end of May. 

They began holding protests, some of which turned violent. Mobs of commercial fishermen began turning up at the facilities where Mi’kmaw stored their lobster. In one case, 200 fishermen ransacked the lobster pound in West Pubnico just days before it was burned to the ground. A lobster boat and a van were also torched. Sipekne’katik Chief Michael Sack was assaulted. 

So far, police have only charged two people—one man for allegedly burning a van and another for the alleged assault on Chief Sack. 

But due to a lack of protection on the water from police and the federal government, Chief Sack says his band members now stand to lose $3 million as his Indigenous commercial fishermen, who have a small number of licenses in the area’s lobster fishery, are too fearful to go fishing when the commercial lobster season opens in the area at the end of November.

“In general, fishing is a very dangerous job but then you’re in the water with 930 other boats that are not your friend—they fear losing their gear and not being able to sell their catch,” he said. 

“It’s unfortunate our people are being pushed aside. There’s systemic racism we’re faced with even right now today.”

A press release issued by the Sipekne’katik First Nation Friday said Sack was calling an emergency meeting with commercial fishermen about the issue. 

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