An Open letter from Brian Dorey to Premier Houston re: offering Liquor to Indians (Mi’kmaq) to settle disputes
May 6, 2026
Dear “Honourable” Premier Houston:
Let me begin by stating how absolutely unacceptable, disrespectful, inappropriate, and short-sighted it is for you to offer the Mi’kmaq liquor stores as a means of settling the ongoing cannabis sales matter. The days of using liquor to encourage Indians to do as you wish have long passed. To not recognize this optic is inexplicable. Government history is repeating itself, but be assured: we remember our history and our past, and we have learned from it well. Remember, when you forget history, you tend to make the same mistakes.
Firstly, why are First Nations not eligible as candidates for their own independent liquor stores? Why must First Nations agree to limit the rights of their collective members just to be eligible to get a liquor store? What rights did non-Indian independent liquor store owners give up to get their liquor stores? Why would the Province not provide First Nations economic opportunities, without rights implications, as part of its responsibilities for economic reconciliation?
In reality, a liquor store on reserve is not even economically feasible for most Nova Scotia First Nations due to population and location. Your solution will not address the issue for these First Nation communities. Your “this one solution is best for you Indians” approach is as paternalistic as it is incorrect. Your solution undermines the Mi’kmaq leadership’s assertion of its right to regulate commerce, including cannabis. Why is Mi’kmaq self-regulation not an acceptable approach?
As well, and disappointingly so, alcohol use on many First Nations is an issue of health and safety concern. Providing greater, easier, and cheaper access will potentially, and negatively, affect our communities’ health. Did you not say you are responsible for the health and safety of the public? Are we not part of the public? Why is it provincially acceptable to create a situation in which the health and safety of First Nations is placed at further potential risk?
Secondly, limiting First Nation economic development to on-reserve activities does little or nothing to address the historic socio-economic disadvantaging of Indians by governments. Your approach is endemic of government approaches to Indian rights: offer them certainty in a small area – reserves – versus “uncertainty” in the larger area – Mi’kma’ki. Be assured, we are certain of our rights existing throughout our traditional territory of Mi’kma’ki. It is only your government that claims uncertainty.
Your reference to the R. v. Marshall decision as the basis for your cannabis enforcement actions is hypocritical. You use a case that stated there was not sufficient evidence presented to support the Mi’kmaq treaty right for the sale of cannabis. The decision by Provincial Court Judge Ronda van der Hoek in June 2024 rejected the treaty rights defence for operating an unlicensed cannabis establishment. However, this decision is a limited one and in no way fully resolves the ongoing and hotly contested issue in Nova Scotia and elsewhere in Canada. The limited nature of Judge van der Hoek’s decision is emphasized by the following factor: the Judge expressly stated that the evidence presented in that case did not provide a factual basis to establish a treaty rights defence, but that she would “welcome a future such case on a stronger factual foundation.”
The hypocrisy is that you use that court decision to justify your actions, but when it comes to the “livelihood” fishery decision in Marshall in 1999, your government has actively frustrated the exercise of the Mi’kmaq right by increasing fines to lobster buyers for buying Mi’kmaq treaty fishery lobster catches. This action effectively takes away the market and the Mi’kmaq livelihood fishery. The fine was increased to some $1 million for lobster buyers. How is this provincial government action in keeping with implementing court decisions? Additionally, you are relying on a Provincial Court decision on cannabis to justify your actions, yet you have frustrated the implementation of a Supreme Court of Canada decision on the livelihood fishery for the last 27 years. And R. v. Marshall has been appealed, with a final decision not yet rendered.
The Mi’kmaq/Indigenous cannabis issue has not been resolved at higher court levels in Nova Scotia or anywhere in Canada at this time.
Admittedly, I would recommend that the Assembly of Nova Scotia Mi’kmaw Chiefs give notice to the Province that it intends to terminate all natural resource agreements with the Province, including mining, forestry, energy, and related agreements. Also, I would ask the Assembly to demand that all road construction, housing, commercial development, and such other activities affecting lands cease within the Province until full archaeological assessments are completed, consultations with the Mi’kmaq are undertaken in accordance with the Crown’s legal duty, and impact benefit agreements are completed and approved by the Mi’kmaq communities. After much thought, however, I realize that these actions would negatively impact the citizens of the Province, people we have no issue with and who, respectfully, should not be harmed for the actions of their government.
Premier, please share the financial and economic value of the agreements, including forestry, mining, power generation, tourism, and related agreements, that the Province has made with Mi’kmaq communities so that the public is aware of the value and benefits the Mi’kmaq have provided to the Province through mutual discussions.
Premier, I struggle with the fact that the Mi’kmaq have, and continue to, work with your government to better the Province, yet the Province impedes our efforts to better ourselves. Your approach to resolving this cannabis matter is one that negates individual Mi’kmaq entrepreneurism and Mi’kmaq government’s assertion and implementation of rights and sovereignty. Will you be implementing a similar practice for the rest of the Province, stifling individual entrepreneurism throughout the Province in favour of municipal control of economic development activities? Additionally, I find it extremely coincidental that, right after the Nova Scotia Chiefs spoke out against the Province’s actions regarding Mi’kmaq cannabis, the Province subsequently cut Mi’kmaq funding programs.
My final comment is on the relationship between the Mi’kmaq and the Province. On one hand, you have a Nation, the Mi’kmaq, dealing with, on the other hand, a non-Nation, the Province. The non-Nation operates as if it has the right to assert jurisdiction and authority over the Nation. The Province is a creation of its founding Nation, Canada. Indigenous peoples have Nation recognition through the British North America Act of 1763 and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The Province does not have legal status as a Nation. Yet the Mi’kmaq deal with you out of respect as an elected body selected by your electorate. Would you accept any of your municipalities usurping your provincial authority? If not, why would you expect the Mi’kmaq to accept the Province usurping Mi’kmaq authority?
In recognition of your aggressive fervour to implement this R. v. Marshall Provincial Court decision, let me bring to your attention R. v. Isaac, 1975, a Provincial Court decision that still stands uncontested to date. This court case deemed that there was no evidence that the Mi’kmaq ever ceded title to lands or resources in Nova Scotia. Can we rely on your equally expedient action, as with how you responded to the implementation of R. v. Marshall, to implement the court’s recognition of Mi’kmaq rights to all Nova Scotia lands and resources?
I will conclude by bringing your attention to a provincial action that I believe truly states how your government really recognizes the place of the Mi’kmaq in your government’s eyes and actions. In 2022, as Premier, you announced the passage of the Mi’kmaw Language Act, a provincial law recognizing Mi’kmaw as the first language in the Province of Nova Scotia.
Then your government put up road signs throughout Nova Scotia welcoming travellers. The word “welcome” is first in English, second in French, and lastly in Mi’kmaq. Mi’kmaq last again. Shouldn’t respect, the honour of the Crown, implementation of your language law, and true recognition and reconciliation require the signs to state welcome in the Mi’kmaq language first, English second, and French third? Obviously not, according to your actions.
In recognition of Mi’kmaq Treaty, Aboriginal Title, and Aboriginal Rights,
Kevin Brian Dorey
Federal Assimilation Number 0250287901
Sipekne’katik
Source: Micmac Rights Association