‘A bureaucracy within a bureaucracy’: The Department of Fisheries and Oceans and relationships under the Maa-nulth Treaty

Despite the acknowledgement of the importance of relations with the ocean for nuučaan̓uł ways of being, relationships between Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) and nuučaan̓uł Nations remain rife with power inequities. The existence, form, and right for nuučaan̓uł to practice fishing, including commercial fishing, is one such flashpoint where relationships with DFO and thus Canada’s policy and general orientation to First Nations are strained. Even for huuʕiiʔatḥ, one of the five First Nations signatories to the Maa-nulth Treaty, coming to the table as equal treaty partners has been difficult due to DFO’s orientation to nuučaan̓uł fishing rights, the hierarchy of scientific knowledges, and lack of recognitions of legal authorities through hawiłpatak hawiih. Based on our 10 years of research into the implementation of the Maa-nulth Treaty, in this paper we explore the relationship between Huu-ay-aht First Nations and DFO. To do so, we begin by overviewing the process of reserve creation across nuučaan̓uł ḥaḥuułi and how colonial understandings and creations of ‘fisheries’ played a key role in dispossession. We then turn to our interviews with Maa-nulth First Nations negotiation and implementation teams to explore how reconciliation and fishing rights have emerged through the Maa-nulth Treaty, and how nuučaan̓uł knowledges have been disregarded by the DFO. We conclude by profiling the tensions, strengths, and challenges huuʕiiʔatḥ have experienced in exercising their treaty rights, inclusive of hawiłpatak hawiih, through the Maa-nulth Treaty and specifically with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.