Fisheries officer suspended after arrest of two Mi’kmaq elver fishers [Video]

HALIFAX –

A veteran federal fisheries officer has been suspended for 10 days without pay for his role in arresting two Mi’kmaq elver fishers late at night and releasing them in only their stocking feet.

Kevin Hartling and Blaise Sylliboy, both in their 20s, were arrested on March 26 as they fished for baby eels near Shelburne, N.S. They said three fisheries officers confiscated their phones and hip waders before leaving them at a gas station about a 45-minute drive from where they had been fishing.

Hartling has said that after the two men were asked to leave the gas station, they walked in the cold without boots along a highway in southern Nova Scotia for hours before they were able to borrow a cellphone to reach a friend, who came and picked them up.

After the incident became public in April, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called it “extremely troubling” and promised …