Is Camoucha still left-wing? The police are on my track. What does the chief say?
Go back! Is Camoucha still left-wing? The big press is on its back. We're killing the Tomahawks. Go back!
I'm convinced that as long as no written agreement is reached with the natives, which naturally would have to be respected, There will always be the possibility of a conflict between a part of the white population and the natives. From almost the first moment the Europeans arrived in North America, they began to push the Indians off their territory, at first by force of arms and later by restrictive legislation. Soon, the Indians were confined to reserves and their hunting and fishing were severely limited by law. Only very recently have there been any efforts made to redress some of these injustices. But then, in June of 1981, the biggest and most violent action against Indians in Canada for over half a century took place in Restigouche, Quebec.
At issue were the salmon fishing rights of the Mi'kmaq people. The salmon has always been an essential source of food and income for the Mi'kmaq, and it has been a part of their lives for thousands of years. I'm going to go there. I'm going to go there.
They used to spear them and they had a torch in the front of what they call in my language a saksigwad. Saksigwad, yeah. Saksigwad means that's like you would use a light on a wild animal. A torch in front of his boat on the seven pools.
That's the way the old timers used to get them. When they came with the weirs, you know, the white people, when they start catching the salmon themselves, well, the Indians adapted to that, and we've kept that ever since. Rusty Go is very famous for its salmon.
But we share that with our friends and our brothers and sisters across the country. I mean, it's part of our belief as Indian people to share what we have. See, you have to understand how the salmon run.
There are four runs. The first run of the pink salmon, which we call the salmon that's going upriver to spawn, that happens traditionally, the mcmack, start fishing around the first of June. Then you have the final run of the year, and that lasts for about a week, week and a half, two weeks at the most.
So, see, we're talking about six weeks in a season. Howl's rising from the sea Rolling line Eagles rising in their flight This wasted spirit in the dark Water tumbling from the clouds Watch down the Thunder Pass and reverse glistening in the sun, as the cycle has begun. People around here have got 10, 11, 12 kids in one family. So if somebody comes to their door and wants to buy salmon, you're not going to refuse. You know they want to eat it.
As far as finding jobs in the area, well, that's almost impossible. First of all, we're basically, our second language is English. There may be just a few people who understand or speak French. And whenever you go to apply for a job, even in Camelton...
and the first thing they'll ask you is, are you bilingual? And if you say yes, Micmac in English, well, they'll ask you, do you speak French? And if you say no, well, I'm sorry, we need somebody bilingual. Micmac is an English word. We're, uh, from Quebec.
We follow the season. In the winter, we go in the bush. In the summertime, we go back to our fishing grounds. In the winter, it's hunting grounds.
Because it's always in the bush, it's a lot warmer in the open. But when the missionaries came, they figured us to be nomads, but we weren't. We always had a permanent village here, and another one right across the river here, Attleville. But this was always our territory. I was born in 85. And I'm the oldest woman on the mission.
I had a big barn over there. We buy all what we short, and all what we want, we buy it. I don't horse cent nowhere.
I pay everything. I don't like that when I take credit. They used to fish before the white man ever came, eh?
So the white man got the idea to do the same thing. Now, he found a way that he could make money by catching a lot of salmon, because there were a lot of salmon on this river. And that's how they communicate with the overseas, you know, the other countries, and tell them this kind of fish are around.
And then we will take boat loads of them over to our country. And then, How they started, I guess, bargaining with Indians and telling them, you shouldn't fish anymore, you know, and then we'll take care of you, whatever is required, we'll give it to you, and you give us the salmon, and you don't fish at all. But in spite of it, they kept on fishing. On June 9, 1981, the Minister Lucien Lessard sent a telex to Chief Alphonse Metallic requesting him to ensure that band members remove all nets from the estuary within 36 hours by midnight June 10, or face the consequences. One thing must be understood.
When the salmon arrives at the mouth of a river, it goes directly to the channel. It desalinated itself turning for two or three days in the channel. channel.
To give you an image, it's a kind of grand root, a kind of otter root of the salmon. If you block this otter root, you would no longer have that resource. The resource would not be perpetuated because the salmon would no longer be able to reach the place where it must go to reproduce.
That is the source of the river. The Quebec government wanted the Mi'kmaq to restrict their fishing to three consecutive 24-hour periods each week, for a total of 72 hours. But the Mi'kmaq insisted on fishing six 12-hour nights each week, as they always had, also for a total of 72 hours. Meanwhile, on the New Brunswick side of the river, the federal government lifted restrictions on commercial fishing.
The catch for the New Brunswick commercial fishermen that year was 109 tons. The fisheries of the other Atlantic provinces and the international fishing fleets off Greenland and Newfoundland took 3,285 tons, intercepting Atlantic salmon on their way back to Canadian rivers to spawn. Sports fishermen from Newfoundland to Quebec took a further 860 tons.
seven tons. That same year all the native people of the eastern region took 22 tons of which six tons were taken by the Mi'kmaq of Ristikush. At 11.20 this morning A force of about 90 Quebec Department of Fisheries wardens and more than 300 Quebec provincial police raided the Restigouche Indian Reserve on the Quebec-New Brunswick border. They located six or seven salmon nets which had not been removed from the river.
I was at the office, I had gone to pick up my check and coming out when the secretaries kept telling us that we only had so many minutes and I didn't know so many minutes for what. I hadn't heard that we were being raided that day. And all of a sudden she yells, they're here.
We were trapped on that end, the west end was trapped on that corner, the only free thing was the fields. We tried the fields, I went to the band office to check what was going on there, it was chaos over there. Looking out the window and seeing QPPs urinating in front of our women and children, you so help us and can't do nothing about it.
I wouldn't want to have that feeling again. As if you were behind bars. I didn't want to move around too much at a time because they were threatening to... To hit anybody with that stick, you know, and had guns and everything else.
There was no telephones working at that time. Everybodyrybody says the same thing. At the time when they heard the helicopters, the phone service was out. I just came home, eh? And the police were just marching down this road here.
And my sister told me, why don't you get the camera and get some pictures? So naturally, I went to get, you know, camera and I went to take pictures. I had no idea they were going to come down over here.
They had their boats or whatever coming down. I had no idea at the moment. So I went down, took some pictures. Well, just...
There were so many cops, I couldn't believe it. I couldn't get them all on film. MUSIC PLAYS They didn't want me to come with my car from the office, so I just dodged them. And one fellow put his hands up like this. I made up my mind.
I was so goddamn mad. So he jumped off my way. Coming back, I'd done the same thing. My chief was waving at me to come ashore.
I wasn't going to come ashore. I said, I'm going to throw my gun. I told my brother, we'll go around and try to save the nets anyway, take them home. Then again I decided, I see them, one of them was grabbing hold of my son, tried to shake him up as my son was on there.
I told my brother, bring me ashore. So when I jumped on the wharf and I seen him waving, you know, I told my son, I says, don't, don't, don't fight back, just ignore them. Do what they say. And I had to walk the gauntlet to go see him. I told the boys to keep quiet.
I mean, just get in your cars. And I told the commander, I says, I'm the guy that's representing the fishermen here. And he says, you don't represent nobody. We are taking over today and we are the bosses now.
I'm telling you that it was no picnic. The police were not going to a picnic. Virtue is not necessarily only on one side. There are confrontations among whites too. And there are those that do things that are inadvisable.
One must not think either that just because they are natives that all is pure. It was from here to the train when one of the wardens started talking French. It wasn't a warden, it was a QPP. We didn't understand what he was saying, so we stood aside.
And he says, get out of the way, but where can you go if you get out of the way? You can't jump in a river. So we stood there.
They had enough room to go by. As soon as they came up to us, they started beating us up. We seen very clearly what they were doing.
They marched in and they took Donald Germain and handcuffed him and beat him and dragged him to the beginning of the war. They made him kneel down and they had his head to the ground. He couldn't move any way he wanted to.
If he did, they banged him up with nightclubs and they were long, long sticks. I was, you know, I was staggering. So the guy tells me to kneel. I wasn't going to leave for anybody. So I got knocked down over here again.
The wardens took nets that were in the river, and the police threatened people for information. Garages and backyards were invaded and nets seized. Some of the nets were destroyed with knives and left behind.
These wardens boats were just riding around all over the water. They had no regard, no disregard or anything. They just took full advantage of everything. So what happened to your net?
Oh, completely destroyed. Ran over by two boats. And my buddy's net here got confiscated. You know, they took it right off from the boat. Ran right in the water.
And I stayed in the water till one of the choppers came towards me and I said, I'm going to give up right now. There was one QPP that grabbed me by the hair. They brought me up the hill and they threw me on the ground and stomped on me. They put the cuffs on me and they picked me up by the hair.
Once we got to the van, they stopped and the guy that was on the other side pulled my hair up again and grabbed me by the hair and he punched my face. They beat up Adrian Metallic. They beat him over the head right in the back of the motel.
They took our shoes off so that we couldn't run away. What they don't know is Indians can run with no shoes. laughter and they were lining up their men for the assault.
So I tried to organize a counterpart, you know, to do the same thing they were doing if they attacked us, that we were ready. But then again, we got chased off by them, by the QPP. So I pulled my pants down and told them to kiss my butt.
I just had my swim trunks on. And that's when I got in jail. For two days, no scotch. I'm gonna go back. The bridge was blocked on the New Brunswick side of the river by the RCMP, cutting off most of the children who were at English school here in Campbellton.
Well, the teachers told us that there was a raid, and they wanted us to stay in the school round, so we just didn't want to stay around, so we just left. The cop man said, stop, don't go across, you might get hurt. So we didn't listen to him. And we went, we sneaked there, we went onto the catwalk and we got onto the bridge.
And I was sitting on the catwalk and RCMP came along and he wanted me to come up with him and I said no. And I just ran. He just swung a nightstick. So I didn't know where Jimmy was so there was me and my friends. When we went across we seen a whole bunch of cars lined up and policemen and everything.
And I seen a man with a... It was a gun, a big gun, it has a big barrel. I think it was a gas bomb, I think.
Then we went across the bridge and we seen the QPP. The QPP, they were all lined up on the road, right? We thought they were with us. I ran across the whole scene. Go, Phillip, go.
Run, run. I seen them chase Phillip and Peter Swanson, and then I just said, they're not on our side. I can't say now who came up to us and told us that Jimmy was, you know, hiding under the bridge. And like when my husband found out about our son there, he went over, he just pushed his way through. He went up.
under the bridge, let's say on the Quebec side, and that's where he found my son. We were at that stage that day. We didn't give a damn and brought him across, and he stayed with us for the rest of the day. But he was scared, he was crying. He felt like, Daddy, help me.
It was awful. What can you do or say to a child to make them... He felt better. He was just glad he was home with us.
The boat went out about four or five feet off the shore. And one of the police officers says, get off the boat. And I couldn't get off the boat right away.
It was kind of out of his leg. So two of them came at me and grabbed me off the boat, took me out of the boat and handcuffed me. There were 12 people arrested, including two minors.
The children were sent to a juvenile detention centre 100 miles away, while the adults were detained at the provincial jail in New Carlisle. About 12 o'clock that night, I told my friend to call a guard. I couldn't sleep, I couldn't lay.
The guard came over and he called the doctor. He came over to see me, gave me some pills. They knocked me out till morning.
In the morning, when I woke up, I couldn't move. You know, I figured I was paralyzed or something. They came over and they gave me some more pills, and from there they took me to Moriah Hospital. When we got fingerprinted and went up, they took us up and took the handcuffs off and we went up. And about an hour later, I was asked to come down again for fingerprinting.
You alone? Yes, I was alone. I came down and I got fingerprinted again. And I think we had supper, and after supper I got fingerprinted again.
And then I went back up and there was three flights of stairs. And we took a shower and stayed there for the night. Next morning... And we had breakfast and then after breakfast I was called down again for fingerprinting. It was, I think it was the fourth time I was called down for fingerprints.
The reserve is virtually under siege by the troops of Mr. René Levesque. And the only protection afforded to them was by the Indian people themselves. The president of the National Indian Brotherhood, Del Riley, gave his full support to Restigus. This land will remain under Indian control, and that's how it's going to stay.
Very quickly, Indian people across the country demonstrated their support for the people of Restigouche. In Montreal, a large group of Mohawks from Kahnawake block rush-hour traffic on the busy Mercier Bridge which passes over their reserve. Also, the National Indian Brotherhood and All Chiefs Conference decided to move its meeting place from Victoria, B.C.
to the Restigouche Reserve. Spokesman Peter Dion said, The decision followed accusations by Indian leaders of police brutality and trespassing during the raid. The Federal Indian Affairs Minister, John Monroe, was summoned to Restigush by the Chiefs to explain his position on Indian fishing rights adopted by the Restigush Band Council, giving the Mi'kmaq authority over their salmon fishing.
Banned by laws come under the Federal Indian Act. and override any provincial fishing regulations, said Mr. Monroe. How do you feel about the mention that the federal government may take away control of the fishing and hunting from the Quebec? As I said, Mr. Monroe should have...
Stay at home and shut up. Tension remained very high on the reserve. The barricades were up and all the guns were in the council house.
The Indian Brotherhood provided support staff under Alchrist John. They helped guard the reserve's entrances and monitor police radio frequencies. They would set foot on a reserve again with their kind of squad.
We're not responsible for killing anybody. They have no jurisdiction to come in. Nine days after the first raid, at 5 a.m., the second raid began.
We were ready for them the second time. And they must know something about it, that we were ready for them. When we had the blockades and all this, they bluffed their way the first time, but the second time they couldn't do it. The second raid, they had to come from Camel, but they never entered the reserve at all. My mother that came into the room and woke me up saying that there was another raid.
And it was very hectic around the house. People were calling, asking if we were still going to get married that day. And there was a lot of running around. Everybodyrybody worried. Everybodyntually what we did was we cancelled it for one hour.
I'm glad that we did because I had ripped the backside of my tuxedo. It could have been quite a bloodshed that time. And it would have been if we didn't hold back our people. Because after that we decided to get organized to fight them back, after we had all those Indians from all over the place coming. Many Indian people from all over North America had come here to help the Mi'kmaq people defend their rights.
Some came from as far away as Alaska. We were sleeping out in the car. We were awakened by some of the people. They said, Hey, we've got a raid, we've got a raid. And a loudspeaker blared and said, If you don't get off the wharf, we're going to start shooting tear gas at you.
They had discussed it with some of the organizers of the Native Women's group that to summon most of the women and the children, that the best thing that they could do was use the church bells. to summon the people because that what they had wanted to do was to place place the individuals in one central area which was the basement of the church at the time so that was the reason why they didn't have any church bells ringing at our wedding well normally they they are they are rung after after the after the service which i would say they last for about 20 minutes Depending, I guess, on how much you pay the priest to... What do you want him to run? 10 minutes or 20 minutes or whatever?
Mind you, I was prepared to pay a fortune for them to ring. Well, we were all going to the wharf to try and get our knits, but we didn't succeed. They were shooting tear gas and them rubber, whatever you call them things there, bullets. Oh yeah, they were shooting at us, all right, but they couldn't make us move or anything. I got one on my foot.
I couldn't work for two weeks because it was aching all the time. I couldn't wear a shoe for a week. We had a meeting this afternoon with the city council and the mayor of Camelton, and we all came to an agreement that we will lift the barricades up on both sides at 4 o'clock. There were still roadblocks set up after we were married, but there was enough passage for us to get through to get to Camelton, where the reception was held. Well, it was a day we'll never forget.
I wouldn't recommend anybody to get married during the salmon season again. If I had arrived at a dead end, as was the case on June 10, 1982, as a responsible minister, I would have had to take certain measures. Would they have been the same measures? I would ask myself. Would it have been done the same way?
I would ask myself. You made the comparison with the October crisis. today at noon.
It's true that it might have left some scars. But anyway, I took the last recourse. I attempted the impossible. And anyway, last year, as I discovered when I went to negotiate with the Indians and to sign the agreement, after all, those people were satisfied with the agreement, and I don't know. I asked myself, Madame Elenise, Would I have been able last year to sign the agreement and have it accepted if 1981 had not happened?
I don't know. I ask myself this question. When the decision was made in Quebec, was Mr. René Levesque in on it? You know, Madame Elenise, that a decision as important as that one, where I was facing reactions, Because I knew a little about the history of the confrontation that had happened in 1972 and 73, where I was apprehensive about very difficult and hard reactions, where I was concerned. I had consulted Mr. Levesque, I had consulted the cabinet, and each decision that I took on this subject was made in consultation with the Prime Minister of Quebec.
I think that it's a most frustrating... It was a very frustrating experience to have people try to understand the Indian perspective and the Indian point of view because they, as French Canadians, still seem to feel that they were the first settlers in the country and that they have some kind of a claim for the same territory in the province of Quebec. When you came to Restigouche, I was outraged by what you said to the band council.
It was dreadful. The chief said, you French Canadians are asking for sovereignty here in Quebec. You are saying it's your country and you want to be independent in your country.
We're surprised that you don't understand us Indian people and our sovereignty on our land. And you answered, you cannot ask for sovereignty because to have sovereignty, one must have one's own culture, language, and land. Sa langue et sa terre.
Is the government of Quebec going to recognize the collectivity at Moriah, which is entirely sovereign? How far does that sovereignty go? It's a question of definition. Does it go as far as, for example, controlling the government of Quebec?
of the whole resource. Certain native chiefs are creating illusions for the native people. The Gaspé Peninsula, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, etc. It belongs to us. Do you mean to tell me at this point, Montreal too...
belongs to you? Of course, all Canada belongs to us. Are you saying that you're going to exclude us? Did we tell you to get the hell out of here?
We never said that. We always shared. You took, took, took. Instead of being proud of us, you talk of your history, your Quebec. The history of Quebec does not begin with the French Canadians.
Oh yeah, I know. Then it's certain that I should take measures to maintain the salmon species in the Restigouche River, as I did at Pébasse, for example, for the whites last week. So what will happen in the next few days, I don't know. No, they refuse Quebec's jurisdiction. That took two hours?
Did he tell you that the Quebec laws had to be respected? That's what he says. I says, how about our laws? Our Big Mac territorial laws? The chief on high, he told us, it seems that it started with Adam and Everybody, and started...
from there, he told us, grow and multiply yourselves. You're not going to tell me the apple story. No, no, just a second. Grow and multiply yourselves means that in Quebec, from 65,000, the whites have now become 6 million. That can't be stopped.
That's the way it is. Here is a government that's crying about sovereignty, crying about discrimination. It's being discriminated by the rest of Canada. And here is a government...
The same government is doing the same thing that they're talking about the English Canada, what it's doing to them. Only worse, they're using guns on us. We went to court and our lawyers apparently made a deal with the prosecutor. And if we plead guilty, the most we would get is a $25 fine suspended sentence. There's two of us that didn't want to plead guilty.
We didn't do anything wrong, so... The $25 fine is not a big fine, but it's the principle of it. I didn't want to play guilty, so we went to trial.
The trial was held at the courthouse in New Carlisle, Quebec. The judge was Yvon Mercier. Claude Jourdain was the Crown Prosecutor.
Defence Counsel was Nery Cormier. They had two policemen that testified against me. They didn't even recognize me on the picture. I wasn't allowed in for most of it, but when I was allowed in, they weren't going to use me as a witness, but they did bring my pictures up.
And the judge tossed him into the courtroom. He accused the Indians of hiring me as a professional photographer to fake the pictures. And we were the witnesses, Fay and I. We went in the courtroom and we said our story, but the judge never believed us.
What did he say? He said in French that we were all liars and that we were making it up. There was evidence, the pictures, pictures that were taken during the raid.
He says that we made them up. That's what he told the audience in the courtroom. After I seen the pictures coming up, I had expected him to ask me to leave, but I never, I had heard this after the trial was over, but him accusing me of being hired to fake them, I didn't feel too good about that, because there's no way I could fake a picture like that.
It's impossible, because I couldn't hire the policeman to pose for me. Were the people resisting arrest? No, not at all, not that I could see. He got me so nervous when I went up. two witnesses.
I could hardly say my name, so he hollered at me, and then I even got more scared and stuff, but I didn't get confused. I told him exactly what I seen, and he still didn't believe us. From the transcripts of the trial, Judge, I have to decide and make a choice between two versions of the facts, the version given by the two police officers and the version given by the accused himself and by these witnesses who are two women, and I have to study this proof and decide if I believe your version or the one given by the two police officers.
But the Crown Prosecutor, in his remarks before this court, struck me right away, because I was going to make this statement. How come that on a day like this one, you had your personal photographer taking pictures of the event? I just can't stand that.
If you had no intention of doing anything, I just can't understand how Donald Germain... Can I judge? You shut up. I told you I just can't understand why your personal photographer was there. And in your own trial today, you file as evidence before this court, pictures taken by a photographer.
I just can't understand that. Unless there's only one explication. Unless you had the intention of doing something and you want your photographer to take pictures of the event.
Germain, I don't believe you at all. That's it. I don't believe your witnesses.
Is this a... I don't believe your witnesses. I don't believe your photos.
And he said he was going to make an example of me. He said he would give me a $250 fine and one year probation. And the judge wouldn't believe any word I said?
Said you were guilty? Oh, I felt, I don't know, that it was... More or less to expect what was going to come anyways.
We figured this was going to happen. I'm tired. I told her right from the beginning, no use going to court.
We knew the Indians were going to lose anyways. See the QPPs brought their own judge from Quebec somewhere, and they had their own... prosecutor and their own lawyers and it was all set up.
We spent a whole day there for nothing. We brought our, we had to bring our children with us you know and we spent a whole day in court for nothing when we only witnessed for five minutes and after all that trouble the judge ended up not believing us. I didn't feel like talking for about an hour.
I was just walking around. I knew I was right. I was not guilty.
That's why I'm going back for an appeal. And I know the other guys were in appeal too. We're just fishing. We're not doing anything wrong, we're just fishing. I hope there's a summoning there.
At least one. What seems to hurt most about this crisis that happened on June 11th was that the province has destroyed a spirit of trust, a spirit of understanding in the surrounding communities. June 1982. The Minister of Fisheries opens commercial fishing of salmon in the province of Quebec.
I had no choice. Because the Quebec fishermen were seeing the commercial fishermen in New Brunswick fishing right in front of them. And as you say, the salmon.
Who were taking them? It was the fishermen of New Brunswick who were taking the salmon. We don't even need an agreement to fish or hunt.
The white man is fishing in the Atlantic, Pacific Oceans, they're taking all kinds of fish. They got factory ships, they got all kinds, can them right there, they sell them right there. And the salmon comes our way and then when it gets here there's only a little bit for us to fish.
We live with the environment. We're not here to destroy the environment. And we've always been taught that by our fathers and their fathers. We have always stated we could do a better job than you guys as far as conservation goes. Because we've been at it longer than you people have.
We understand the land. If you were an Indian, would you negotiate? I think that if I were Indian, and that's how I placed myself in the negotiations, in the place of an Indian, and I said to myself, since the Quebec government is letting things go regarding hunting and fishing, etc., I don't see any interest under these circumstances as long as the Quebec government lets go of things. I don't see that the Indians would have any interest in negotiating.
It's politics, eh? I mean, like, you know, a lot of politicians rely on what polls and all that, what people say and all that. But I myself, I mean, you know, it doesn't really matter to me.
If I see a white guy... It don't matter. You know, if he's a friend of mine, he's still a friend of mine. I feel we have something to be proud of. Being Indian and also being human.
And I've got a lot more self-respect for myself, for the people on this reserve. Is there anything else you'd like to say? I would simply like to say this.
It's certain that on a personal level, the events at Restigouche touched me. And if I was able, as Lucien Lessard, to create problems for those people, I apologize enormously. I had the opportunity to meet them on June 23rd, but especially when I went to sign the agreement, I loved my stay inside the reservation.
It's going to take a couple of generations before our children forget because they're going to keep reminding their children too. I'm very satisfied about the way the people rallied with us during the time. They really sort of cemented us together and made us realize that you can't stand alone. You have to depend on each other to survive, especially nowadays. Our way of life is threatened.
I was talking to some of the older people. It takes a lot of armies before they can drag me out of my home here, where I was born. And I'm enjoying my living here. And I wouldn't move an inch. That should be or something.
In August 1983, The convictions and sentences passed upon Donald Germain and Robert Barnaby by Judge Mercier were overturned and annulled by Judge Louis Dion of Quebec Superior Court, who wrote in his judgment, It is impossible to say whether the accused would have been found guilty, if not for the errors in fact and law committed during the trial. There is certainly a possibility that they would have been acquitted. For these reasons, The court sets aside the convictions and sentences passed upon the accused.