Historic Cree deal marred by arrests, voting concerns

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Quebec Crees have approved one of the most lucrative development agreements ever signed by an Indigenous group, but a painful debate over the deal has left bitter feelings in the nine far-flung communities of James Bay.

Crees voted to accept the landmark $3.4-billion deal with Quebec in a series of referendums that has left lingering questions about a mediocre turnout and how the voting was organized.

The deal opens the door to a $3.8-billion hydro-electric project on the Rupert and Eastmain rivers, in exchange for which Quebec will grant Crees $70 million per year until the year 2052.

Crees will get an additional $866 million from Hydro-Quebec in construction contracts and job training. There will be still more money indexed to revenues from any future development projects.

The deal was signed with much fanfare in Waskaganish Feb. 7 with Quebec Premier Bernard Landry flanked by Cree Grand Chief Ted Moses and most of the other chiefs.

The ceremony was marred by the arrest of two Crees who opposed the deal. One of the arrested men, former Waskaganish chief Henry Diamond, approached the head table and accused Moses and Landry of lying to the Cree people. He was immediately grabbed by Cree police and forcibly escorted outside. The scuffle left him bleeding from the nose and head.

Sixty-eight per cent of Crees voted for the deal, but only 55 per cent of eligible voters cast ballots. The largest Cree community, Chisasibi, was the only one to oppose the deal, with 621 in favor and 668 against.

Chisasibi has painful memories of the first series of vast hydro reservoirs and mega-dams built on the majestic La Grande River starting in the early 1970s. The community was forced to relocate and residents still have deep concerns about safety problems at the dams and a lack of emergency plans.

The signing ceremony has not erased questions about how the vote was organized. The Grand Council of the Crees was reluctant to hold a referendum on the deal in the first place, with one Cree negotiator saying Crees would not be able to understand the complex agreement.

But Crees demanded a say and each community eventually decided to hold its own vote. The result was a mishmash of different voting dates.

The talk in the communities leading up to the historic votes was about which way it would go. No one knew. It was going to be close.

One of the first communities to vote was Eastmain, hometown of the deal's champion, Grand Chief Ted Moses. As Eastmain was still voting on Jan. 29, the community's electoral officer Kenneth Gilpin said in an interview that the results would not be announced until all the communities had finished voting four days later.

"The results won't be released until the voting takes place in Waskaganish (Feb. 1 and 2), so as not to influence the results," said Gilpin in an interview at 3:50 p.m.

Two hours later, after the votes were counted, the Eastmain band reversed course. The community had overwhelmingly voted for the deal. At 6:01 p.m., the result was suddenly announced in a press release sent over Canadian news wires.

Sometime between 3:50 and 6:01, a top Grand Council official had called Eastmain and recommended that the result be announced, according to a Cree official who requested anonymity.

Other Cree communities voting the next day also announced right away that they had endorsed the deal. The results were immediately broadcast over local radio.

Meanwhile, voting was still getting under way in Chisasibi and Waskaganish, two communities with the most concerns about the deal and which share nearly half the Cree population. Waskaganish was especially concerned because the hydro project will reduce the Rupert River, which flows past the community, to a trickle.

Crees are debating whether the early announcements tipped the scales in favor of the deal. The deal's supporters say the timing of the announcements was not intended to influence the vote.

"Every community is self-governing in their ow way. I don't think the intent was to influence the results," said Paul Gull, chief of Waswanipi.

Asked if the early announcements had inadvertently influenced the results, Gull said, "no comment," but said he was pleased to hear the results of the voting.

Others said the early announcements may have tipped the scales among the many Crees who were still undecided or not sure if they would cast a ballot.

"I think it influenced them. At first they said they weren't going to announce the results until the end," said Paul Dixon, a trappers' representative in Waswanipi.

"I really feel sad and I sympathize with the Waskaganish people."

Dixon said the feeling in the communities is now mixed.

"A lot of people who voted for it felt powerless. The feeling was: 'I'm going to sign because everybody is signing.'

"We're losers-that's the feeling people have."

As for the low turnout, some attributed that to silent opposition to the deal.

"In the Cree world, if people don't show up that's their way of saying they don't agree," said one Cree who also requested anonymity.

As part of the deal, Crees agreed to drop billions of dollars in lawsuits against Quebec, including one that called the province's forestry policies unconstitutional and a violation of Cree rights.

But the dispute over forestry is far from over. Gull said the Cree forestry lawsuit is being maintained for now against two dozen forestry companies that log in Cree territory and against the Canadian government.

Some of the forestry companies are angry about being left out of the negotiations with the Crees and are now refusing to sit down to discuss changes in forestry operations, which may mean more court battles.

The deal with Quebec is intended to settle never-fulfilled obligations of Quebec dating back to the 1975 James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement, the treaty that opened the door to the massive James Bay dam complex, which provides half of Quebec's power.

The 1975 agreement promised Crees coud continue their hunting-and-trapping way of life unmolested by development. But clear-cut logging has wiped out thousands of square kilometres of Cree forests. Quebec has never subjected forestry in Cree land to environmental hearings, contrary to provisions in the James Bay agreement.

The dispute over forestry is what gave birth to the negotiations with Quebec in the first place. Ironically, the deal signed with Quebec in February does not contain much substantial reform of the forestry regime, a reason many Crees objected to it. Forestry still won't be subjected to environmental hearings as dictated in the James Bay agreement.

"The end result is as it was before," said Dixon. "They're still going ahead and cutting the trees."