When John is not at a meeting, he’s travelling to another meeting, and not just in Unama’ki either.

John Couture’s role as Commercial Fisheries Liaison Coordinator at UINR has him attending industry, science and advisory committee meetings all over the Maritimes. If it’s about commercial fishing and involves the interests of the five Cape Breton Mi’kmaq communities that UINR represents, John will be there!

Afterwards he reports back to the communities to discuss options, outcomes, changes, and updates on commercially fished species, invasive species, species- at-risk, pollution and changes in government.

A graduate of Sydney Academy, John studied at Cape Breton University and continues to learn new skills and ways to approach issues, people and projects.

John comes to UINR after a stint at Fisheries and Oceans Canada as their Aboriginal Program Coordinator, assisting communities fulfill their Aboriginal Fishing Strategy agreements. As a Licensing officer he provided advice to clients, managed license fees, issuance and tags. While Administrative Officer he managed accounts and projects, dealt with security, occupational health and safety issues

“Every day I learn from our community managers, chiefs and coworkers. With new service cuts our communities need to do new tasks on new time lines. I want to be sure that Unama’ki is a leader.”