The Musqueam tribe were granted a cultural exemption from the Fisheries Act after a lengthy court case initially concerning regulations over net length. Allowing this rule and exemption approach goes against difference-blind liberalist values which believe that differences should be ignored and emphasis placed on common features when creating and implementing policy and that all individuals should be treated equally and receive due process under the law regardless of ethnicity or gender. (Pike, 2007, p.96). However, autonomy is important to all liberals, the freedom to live as you please, so when the individual freedoms of a minority culture contradict the supposed dominant view of the majority it can be argued that it is important to grant an exemption to preserve the cultural resources of the community.

In this example fishing is an integral and significant aspect of Musqueam culture; their declaration from 1976 states they wish to “affirm...aboriginal rights to exercise use of our land, the sea and fresh waters...occupied and used by our ancestors...without foreign control or restriction”. Raz and Margalit argue for self-determination and that being part of a cultural group has a “profound and far-reaching” effect on the choices you make and how you behave in every aspect of your life. When someone's culture is undermined and they lose some or all of their traditions it tends to lead to difficulty fully adopting or integrating aspects of other cultures and they are “less able to live as they choose...likely to lead frustrated and unfulfilling lives” (Pike, 2008, p.115).

The Musqueam's themselves claim “the uncompensated taking of our fishery has more than any other contributed to the existing impoverishment and social malaise found in coastal first nation communities” (sparrow 1990 page).

The regulations imposed on them went “to the heart of their identity – to what makes them the sort of person that they are” (Pike, 2008, p.104) and resulted in hardship and limited options for the members of the community who “from time immemorial occupied, used and gained their livelihood from those lands waters and seas” (Musqueam Indian Band, 1976, p.1).

When considering to when to grant an exemption it is important to consider who is affected by the exemption and if it takes priority over being sensitive to minority way of life. Granting an exemption to assault laws in the UK because sharia law supposedly claims you may strike your wife if she disobeys you results in damaging consequences for someone else, even if it is not the majority population. By allowing followers of the Sharia Law moral code to be free and autonomous it leads to the oppression

Pike writes that“the seriousness of the injustice depend...on the extent to which it fits into a broader pattern of deep seated, long-lasting and substantial inequalities” and with little background research it becomes clear the Musqueam people have been victims of negative discrimination spanning back many years. Set aside one third of one percent of British Columbia they believed their fisheries were secure and would continue to trade with settlers, as they had done for many years beforehand. In reality much of their resource was intercepted by non-Aboriginal commercial traders and by the 1880's they had successfully lobbied to be given priority over the Musqueam fishermen, later securing restrictions on the Indian food fishery claiming it was the primary threat to conservation (Hamar Foster, B.C. history, not race, fuels fishing decisions, 2007).

All this considered, able to prove their fishing traditions had important cultural significance to their people it was in the interest of the policy makers to grant an exemption to preserve the identity of the Musqueam people. To deny them access to their ancestral fishing practises is to deny them the right to live their long-established way of life.












Evaluation

The founding principle of liberalism was to “stand in opposition to certain kinds of discrimination” (Pike, 2008, p.93) so at first glance granting an exemption to anyone on the grounds of cultural differences seems to go against the very idea of everyone being equal under the law. However, laws themselves can be discriminatory, severely affecting a person's way of life and sense of identity. To suggest cultural differences plays no part in public policy would be untrue, in several instances trivial regulations of private institutions to international law have been contested by people claiming it was offensive or damaging to their cultural identity and infringed on their rights. Many people argue that cultural identity is central to well-being and Margalit and Raz conclude the “tie between the individual and the collective is at the heart of the case for self-determination...those who belong to none are denied full access to the opportunities that are shaped in part by the groups culture” so it is a valid conclusion to think that people who lose part of their culture “feel estranged and their chances to have a rewarding life are severely damaged”. These cultural resources, which promote a strong community, should therefore be considered in public policy if it wishes to support people living an autonomous existence.

Why then are some cultural exemptions granted and some are not? The Japanese continue to come under criticism for their commercial whaling, despite it being “an important part of Japanese society for over 1,000 years” (japanfacts). Just with the Musqueam people the regulations relate to conservation, so one could argue that it is important to preserve the earth rather than old customs. Although I would agree with this viewpoint it is important to look at the differences between the two cases and what resulted in the Musqueam's being granted exemption when the Japanese were not. If it is unjust to deny a group of people the right to carry out a significant and important activity of their culture then it should always be unjust.

There is no doubt that whaling is a big part of Japanese history and tradition but being restricted from doing so did not impact the Japanese people the in same way restrictions on the Musqueam people did. Without whaling Japan has access to a plethora of other resources, food supplies and goods for trade. Quoting the New Zealand Conservation Minister on his website marine biologist C. George Miller writes “There is no financial value in it, there is certainly no science in it, so it has to be a twisted nationalism”.

The difference, as I see it, is placing regulations on the Muqueam people removed their main resource, leaving them fiscally disadvantaged and without the trade that had defined them as an independent community for so long.

It could be argued that the Musqueam people can and should utilise their fishing skills to work for commercial fisheries, and many of them have, a handful even obtaining personal fishing licences. However, the wages are poor and it denies them the opportunity to prosper using their trade and limits them to a labour workforce to make money for European canneries (Commercial Fishing in BC: A History). As formerly mentioned the Musqueam people were cited to be the main threat to conservation through propaganda from European canneries, when placing restriction on them for this reason is unfair.