Copyright © 2000 NLThomas
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TORONTO - On Monday, July 17 two officers from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) showed up on Doug Pritchard's doorstep. "They came wearing bullet proof vests, and carrying pepper spray and handcuffs," Pritchard reported. "One officer came up on the porch while the other waited down below in the yard."

They came to charge Pritchard, the Canadian coordinator of Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT), in relation to an incident that took place on June 12 in Miramichi Bay in northeastern New Brunswick. CPT maintained an observer presence with the esgenoopetitij First Nation (EFN) during the lobster fishing season this spring.

CPT's presence was requested because earlier this year the EFN refused to sign agreements with the DFO. The EFN have been exercising their treaty rights to regulate their own fisheries and this has gained them unwelcome attention from the DFO, including lobster trap confiscation.

On June 12, at about 1:30 p.m., three DFO boats with eight officers came and once again began pulling up EFN regulated lobster traps and confiscating them. Two members of the EFN went out on the water in a small twelve foot dory to challenge the officers and Pritchard went along to observe.

The EFN members said that the DFO officers were breaking the law by confiscating the traps, as well as, violating treaty rights, stealing fishing equipment and trespassing in territorial waters. The DFO officers responded by circling the dory in their speedboat which generated large waves. Then the DFO officers turned their motor towards the dory, lifted the motor and gunned it. This created a wave that swamped the dory.

Meanwhile another boat from the EFN came out to help, bringing four more members of the EFN and two more observers: Chris Buhler, also of CPT, and Ron Kelly of the Aboriginal Rights Coalition (ARC). When it arrived, the DFO officers rushed towards the boat with full force threatening to broadside it. At the last second, however, they swerved and collided with one of their own boats.

The DFO boats finally left after confiscating about twenty traps.

As a result of this challenge to the DFO's actions, all six EFN members on board the boats have been charged, along with Pritchard, with obstruction of a fisheries officer, which carries a maximum fine of $500,000. Buhler and Kelly were not charged.

"It's a pattern of harassment," Pritchard commented. "First they [the DFO] charge the people who go out to fish. Then they charge the people who go out to challenge the DFO officers. Now they are charging the people who go out to observe."

All those charged are to appear in court in Neguac, New Brunswick in September to enter their pleas and set a date for trial.