Shelburne man charged with arson in relation to 2020 fire at N.S. fish plant

A second person has been charged with arson related to a fire at a fish plant in Nova Scotia last year.

Sean Roy Messenger, 29, of Shelburne County was arrested Wednesday and charged with arson at the Middle West Pubnico plant.

Around midnight on Oct. 15, 2020, an unoccupied building at the fish plant caught fire and was destroyed.

"Investigators determined that the fire was the result of arson and identified a suspect in the incident," Cpl. Chris Marshall said in a news release Thursday.

Messenger was released and is due in Yarmouth provincial court on Nov. 29 to answer the charge. In July, RCMP charged a 24-year-old man with the same crime.

At the time of the fire, tensions were running high between non-Indigenous commercial fishermen and Mi'kmaw fishermen who had started a moderate livelihood lobster fishery outside the federally mandated commercial season.

The blaze broke out at one of two facilities raided and vandalized by commercial fishermen in southwest Nova Scotia earlier that week protesting the moderate livelihood fishery.

Mi'kmaw fishers were storing their catches at the facilities.

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