CBC News WebPosted
Oct 10 2000
MONCTON, N.B. 

Burnt Church native back in court 

A 27-year old native from Burnt Church will be back
in court Tuesday on a charge of dangerous use of a firearm. 

Gordon Michael Augustine was arrested by police last month on
Miramichi Bay after a a bullet was fired at a commercial fishing boat.  

 

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CBC News WebPosted
Oct 6 2000
FREDERICTON, N.B. 

DFO says it will prosecute Burnt Church lobster buyers 

The provincial government says it's going to
help Ottawa crack down on the native lobster fishery in Burnt Church.
It's going to join an investigation by federal fisheries officers looking
at who's been buying lobster from the Mi'kmaq band at Burnt Church. 

The federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans says the catch is illegal and it will
prosecute whoever bought lobster from the reserve. 

Now the New Brunswick government says it will 
help Ottawa by punishing fish plants that bought the lobster. 

Paul Robichaud, the provincial fisheries minister, says he has the
power to suspend the licence of any fish plant convicted under the
federal act of possessing illegal fish. 

Ottawa regulates the lobster fishery but it's the province that
licenses processing plants. 

DFO believes that some fish plants in New Brunswick have bought
lobster from Burnt Church. But Robichaud says he wants to go after
plants that buy illegal fish from anyone not just from natives. "It's a
question of any illegally harvested fish," he says. "It doesn't matter if
it's lobster or shrimp or snow crab and it doesn't matter if it comes
from natives or poachers. Illegal fish is illegal fish." 

DFO says its investigation will pick up steam now that confrontations
on the water have ended at Burnt Church. 

So far, no one has been charged yet with buying lobster from the reserve.