Relocated, dispersed Crees want new home

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A group of Quebec Crees who say they were forced off their land in the 1950s and 1960s are pressing Ottawa and Quebec to create a new community for them.

The Crees of Washaw Sibi, which means River of the Bay in the Cree language, say they have spent the last 40 years as outcasts scattered across northern Quebec and Ontario after the Indian Affairs department forcibly relocated them by threatening to cut off family allowance and other basic services.

They say they suffer discrimination, can't get services available to other Quebec Crees and are losing their culture and language.

Many say they were forced to move to the Algonquin community of Pikogan, about 500 kilometres north of Montreal, where they are denied jobs and don't have access to education, health or social services in Cree.

They claim to be the poor cousins of other Quebec Crees who got support for Cree culture and other services in the $225-million James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement of 1975.

Now, the Washaw Sibi Crees are organizing. They got a formal vote of recognition in September at the annual assembly of the nine existing Quebec Cree communities.

Their numbers are growing as members come forward to sign the Washaw Sibi registry. At least 350 people have joined, but the band estimates its total membership could be as high as 1,000.

"We want to have our rights under the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement," said Washaw Sibi chief Billy Katapatuk Sr., whose office is in Amos.

"We are moving ahead to get what we need for a new Cree village."

The Grand Council of the Crees has agreed to use its lobbying muscle to pressure the federal government and Quebec to build the Washaw Sibi Crees their own community.

"They would become the 10th community in the Cree nation," said Bill Namagoose, the grand council's executive director.

The grand council and other Cree organizations have given the Washaw Sibi Crees $1 million to help them fight for their rights. Cree organizations have also granted the Washaw Sibi people observer status on their governing councils. The community took another major step in December when it elected its first chief and band council.

Federal and provincial officials are not making promises but say they are open to talking with the community.

Benoit Pelletier, Quebec's minister responsible for Native Affairs, is to meet Katapatuk in the coming weeks to discuss the community's demands.

"The idea of having another community will be discussed. It's too early to say if it will be accepted," said Damir Croteau, a spokesperson for Pelletier.

Michel Blondin, director of the Indian Affairs department's James Bay Implementation Office, which handles Quebec Cree issues, met the Washaw Sibi Crees last fall. He said his office is reviewing their request for funds for an internal consultation on the band's vision for its future.

One issue to be decided is a location for the new community.

Until the 1950s, most of the Washaw Sibi Crees stayed in a settlement outside La Sarre, a non-Native town in northern Quebec. They gathered there in the summer to trade, fish and engage in cultural activities. In the winter, they dispersed to their ancestral traplines.

As miners and loggers flooded north in the 1950s, Washaw Sibi officials said, Indian Affairs decided to relocate them to Pikogan.

"We had no choice. If we didn't have any services, we would have been starving," said Annie-Irene Trapper-Weistche, whose parents were among the Crees forced to move. "They wanted to cut off my mother's family allowance, and there were eight of us."

Some Crees refused to go along and scattered across northern Quebec and Ontario. The community was broken up and forced into a harsh existence, said Kenneth Weistche, Trapper-Weistche's husband and a Washaw Sibi band council member.

"There are no jobs for us; none, anywhere," he said. "We've been forced to move all over the place.

"We have the potential fo a lawsuit. Will the government listen or do we go to court?"

The prospect of a new Cree community has some of the region's politicians smiling because of potential economic spin-offs.

"It's sure that if they become a community, that will help Amos. We will be able to sell them goods and services," Amos Mayor Ulrick Cherubin said.

But not everyone is enthusiastic. Harry McDougall, chief of the Algonquin band at Pikogan, rejected the claim that Crees face job discrimination in his community of 700 residents. He said he has "nothing against" the creation of a community for the Crees, but said it can't be on Algonquin land.

Frank Meness, vice-grand chief of the Algonquin Anishinabeg Nation Tribal Council, also has concerns.

"Pikogan is situated where they are now because that's their traditional territory," he said. "If they have a Cree community nearby, the whole issue of access to traditional land becomes problematic."

Weistche retorted: "We're not touching Algonquin territory.

"We're just claiming Cree rights and Cree traplines. We're not asking for anything extraordinary; simply for our own government services, like any other community."