By Nancy Willis
SOURIS — The blockade against New Brunswick herring seiners escalated at the Souris wharf Thursday where three people were injured and 14 arrested as angry fishermen faced riot police and sent six transport trucks home empty.
Local inshore fishermen were joined in their effort to keep the seiners from unloading their catches by fishermen from all three Maritime provinces, plus Abegweit First Nations members from Rocky Point, Scotchfort and Green Meadows.
Thursday’s protest was the third stand by fishermen against the large seiners in a week.
Their message to Ottawa is “get the big boats the hell out of our waters”.
They say the fishing methods used by the seiners, plus the massive volumes of fish caught in each sweep, are destroying the local herring stocks and endangering all the fish in the vast food chain.
The five-boat herring fleet has already been limited in its fishing in other areas of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, including its own northern New Brunswick home base.
The seiner fleet arrived in port in Souris late Wednesday night. Shortly after midnight, police forced back the crowd as several loaded trucks were escorted off the wharf.
In the confusion, RCMP Const. Russell Stewart lost his footing and slipped under the wheels of an oncoming transport while other officers continued to wave the trucks on, unaware of their comrade’s plight.
One of the fishermen reached for him and was successful in pulling him away from the truck so that only his foot was crushed underneath the wheels.
“We were yelling at the driver to stop, but he had the windows up, and in the heat of the moment the Mounties were still signaling him to keep going,” said North Rustico fisherman Norman Peters.
After the first upheaval, RCMP held the remaining trucks inside the compound until they were all full.
Shortly after dawn, the riot squads assembled at the barriers while a group of 50 plus fishermen sat down on the pavement directly in the path of the oncoming transports.
The tactical squads then moved into formation.
With shields and armaments in place, and attack dogs straining at the leashes, they surrounded the peaceful protesters and began their arrests.
Gerald MacLean of North Lake was bleeding after being shoved against the pavement during his arrest. He was later taken to hospital for treatment before being transported to the Montague RCMP detachment with the rest of the fishermen in custody.
Arrested along with MacLean Thursday were Alan Campbell, Peter Boertien, Justin MacKinnon, Gerard Steele, Joe Banks, Kenneth MacLeod, Kirk Jamison and six others.
“I’ve never felt so proud to be a fisherman in my life. How can we stand by and let them destroy our fishery,” said Kevin MacLeod.
Police then escorted the trucks away from the wharf and on the road towards New Brunswick.
Meanwhile, another 200 fishermen were gathered at the elementary school in Rollo Bay, where they had been blockading six empty transport trucks since late Wednesday night.
The trucks were waiting their turn to pick up fish in Souris.
The fishermen held their ground for more than 12 hours, as additional riot squads gathered at the nearby Rollo Bay Inn in preparation for a move at that location.
Police offered the fishermen an ultimatum.
Either they allow the transport trucks to leave the Rollo Bay school’s parking lot by noon and proceed back to New Brunswick empty under RCMP accompaniment, or the tactical squad would move in and clear the area and the trucks would go to the wharf for the remaining fish.
Shortly before noon, a small group of non-designated fishermen from a variety of Island ports convinced the others to let the transports go.
Many were visibly unhappy with the decision.
While the protest was unfolding Thursday, provincial Fisheries Minister Kevin MacAdam was meeting with his federal counterpart, Robert Thibault.
Thibault agreed to review the crux of the problem, which is a regulatory line that was put in place by error in 1983, allowing the seiners access to Prince Edward Island’s inshore region.
“He is not going to change the line this season, but he has agreed to look at the information before next season,” MacAdam said.
Local MLA Andy Mooney joined MacAdam at the Thibault meeting. They brought a legal opinion concerning the line’s establishment which resulted from a dissimilarity in French and English translations at the time.
“At that time somebody made it read the same in both official languages, but not to our benefit,” said MacAdam.
His research has uncovered no correspondence with anyone in the provincial department, nor anyone in the fishing industry.
“No memos, no nothing,” he said.
Thibault has agreed to provide any correspondence or paper trail that relates to that period.
“From our legal review, we feel there have been a series of errors committed and we want to have it reversed so we can protect our inshore fishery and local herring stocks, because that is what it was put there to do in the first place,” said MacAdam.
The only provincial politicians on the Souris wharf scene Thursday were Liberal MLA Ronnie MacKinley and Montague MLA Jim Bagnall.
MacKinley said the fishermen’s livelihood was on the line, and he demanded something be done about the 1983 line mixup.
“This has to be corrected and it is up to Thibault to correct it, and our four MPs should be involved,” he said in an interview.
He said it is pretty serious if fishermen like Walter Bruce or Norman Peters were at the protest.
“To do this you know they are up against a wall and don’t have any other choice,” he said.
Bagnall said there was no way he would not be present for this day.
“There are a lot of fishermen from my district here and I support them,” he said.
Rory McLellan, managing director of the P.E.I. Fishermens’ Association, called on the fishermen to consider a boycott of many lobster buyers next spring.
“We’ve discovered that the Barry Group is really the company that owns or controls those five seiners,” he said. “And it is also the company that buys almost 50 per cent of the lobster landed on P.E.I.”
In view of what took place at the wharf Thursday, the fishermen’s association is asking Island companies that supply the Barry Group, and Island fishermen who sell to them, to seriously consider where they will sell their lobster next year.
“So effectively, we are calling for a boycott against Barry if the seiners come back to Souris,” he said.
As the empty trucks headed back to New Brunswick and the seiners sat in the harbour with their remaining fish rotting onboard, the protesters dispersed but vowed to come back the second the big boats return to their port.
Except for confrontations with the riot squad, police interaction with the protesters was calm and restrained.
The arrested fishermen were taken to the Montague detachment, held briefly and then released. They are expected to have charges laid against them sometime between now and their scheduled court appearance Dec. 12 in Georgetown.
