Crees threaten to junk James Bay agreement

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The Crees of Quebec are threatening to rip up the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement, take "effective control" over their homeland and call in United Nations observers to monitor Quebec's legal system.

The moves come as a protest against a decision March 8 by Chief Justice Lyse Lemieux of Quebec Superior Court to replace a judge who presided over a $500-million Cree forestry lawsuit filed in 1998 and decided in favor of the Crees.

"Today, we are announcing that we are taking effective control over our land," said Grand Chief Ted Moses at a press conference in Montreal. "We are reinstating the rights we always claimed we had.

"If we weren't in this conference room, we would have burned the [James Bay] agreement right here in front of you."

The judge, Jean-Jacques Croteau, made an initial ruling in the forestry case on Dec. 20 that declared the Quebec government had "openly and continually violated" Cree rights under the James Bay agreement. He gave Quebec six months to start changing its forestry laws to respect the 25-year-old agreement.

The ruling stunned the forestry industry and people in government circles. One Quebec minister claimed it placed 30,000 jobs in jeopardy. Quebec and the other defendants in the case - 27 forestry companies and the Canadian government - appealed and also asked for Croteau's removal, saying he wasn't impartial.

Lemieux agreed to replace Croteau, ruling he might have prejudged the rest of the case in his Dec. 20 decision. She appointed Justice Danielle Grenier, a former Quebec government lawyer, as the new judge.

As word of Lemieux's decision spread, the mood in the Cree communities was one of anger and defiance.

"It's an outright declaration of war. That pretty much says it all about how Canada and Quebec think about Aboriginal people," said one Cree, who predicted "a hot summer" in James Bay.

Moses called Croteau's removal a "political decision" that is "without basis in law."

"It's a sad day for Quebec justice," said Bill Namagoose, executive director of the Grand Council of the Crees. "I feel embarrassed for all Quebecers. Their justice system has been tarnished."

James O'Reilly, a lawyer for the Crees, was left stunned.

"It's an incredible decision," he said. "She [Lemieux] can't say that. She's hypothesizing what Croteau would have decided. It's an elementary error of law."

O'Reilly pointed out that Croteau was chosen in the first place only after Quebec and the other defendants had rejected 37 other possible judges. The Cree side, for its part, didn't reject any judges.

In response, Moses and the Cree chiefs announced that the Crees will respond by withdrawing from the forestry case until Croteau is reinstated, asking that judges across Canada to speak out against a "travesty of justice," and launching a protest campaign against Quebec's forestry policy in the United States and Europe.

Cree officials immediately started a tour of their northern communities to canvas opinion on whether the court case should continue and what should be done next.

Moses wouldn't explain the implications of withdrawing from the James Bay agreement, saying that will be worked out in consultations with Crees. He did suggest, however, that Crees might set up their own forestry regime to regulate logging and replace Quebec's laws.

He also warned that if Quebec and Ottawa retaliate by cutting off funds to the Crees, "we will want all the dams removed, all the airports removed, all the forestry companies to pick up and leave, everything back the way it was before."

A Quebec government spokeswoman and forestry industry officials said they had no comment on Lemieux's decision or the Crees' reaction.

Environmentalists and forestry experts were also taken aback by Lemieux's surprise ruling.

"It's a very low blow to use tactics like that because you're not happy with a decision," said Henri Jacob, president of the 80,000-member Quebec Network of Ecological Groups. "It's not a very honrable tactic to attack a judge instead of the judgement. It gives people the message that even if they get a favorable decision, the government will remove the judge."

"It's a very bad signal," said Luc Bouthiller, a forestry professor at Laval University and a former Quebec appointee to a Quebec-Cree environmental panel. "Maybe there is some legal reason for it, but in terms of symbolism, once again the ditch between Native and non-Native is a little bit deeper in Quebec. I'm a little scared about it."

One Cree echoed this concern, agreeing that relations with non-Natives are deteriorating: "It's going to be very different now. We're always going to have to look behind us. We're always going to have to be ready."