James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement

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The James Bay And Northern Quebec Agreement was Canada's first modern Aboriginal land claim settlement, approved in 1975 by the Cree and Inuit of northern Quebec, and later slightly modified in 1978 by the Northeastern Quebec Agreement, through which Quebec's Naskapi Indians joined the treaty. The agreement covered economic development and property issues in northern Quebec, as well as establishing a number of cultural, social and governmental institutions for Aboriginals who are members of the communities involved in the treaties.

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History

Before the foundation of Canada, the lands of northern Quebec had been a part of Rupert's Land - the territory administered by the Hudson Bay Company as part of the charter it received from King Charles II in 1670. In 1870, all of Rupert's Land was ceded to Canada, and in 1898, the border of Quebec was extended north to the Eastmain River. The remaining territory between Quebec and Hudson Strait became the District of Ungava in the Northwest Territories. Quebec continued to claim Ungava, and in 1912 the area was conceded to Quebec, subject to the condition that a treaty be negotiated with the native peoples of the region recognising their cultural rights and surrendering their title to the land to Quebec and Canada. There was at the time no pre-existing treaty covering that area. The government of Quebec did not immediately undertake such negotiations.

In the 1960s, Quebec began developing potential hydroelectric resources in the north, and in 1971 created the James Bay Development Corporation to pursue the development of mining, forestry and other potential resources starting with the James Bay Hydroelectric Project. This massive undertaking, which had been directed by an increasingly assertive and nationalist government in Quebec without consulting native people, was opposed by most of northern Quebec's Cree and Inuit. The Quebec Association of Indians - an ad hoc representative body of native northern Quebecers - sued the government before Judge Albert Malouf of the Quebec Superior Court and, on 15 November 1973, won an injunction blocking hydroelectric development until the province had negotiated an agreement with the natives.

This judgement was overruled by the Quebec Court of Appeal seven days later, after the government's efforts to quickly negotiate an agreement failed. Nonetheless, the legal requirement that Quebec negotiate a treaty covering the territory had not been overturned, even though construction continued.

Over the course of the next year, the government of Quebec negotiated the required accord. On 15 November 1974 - exactly a year after Judge Malouf's decision - an agreement-in-principle was signed between the governments of Canada, Quebec, the publicly owned Hydro Quebec corporation, the Grand Council of the Crees and the Northern Quebec Inuit Association. The final accord - the James Bay And Northern Quebec Agreement (in French: La Convention de la Baie James et du Nord québécois) - was signed on 11 November 1975. This convention originally only covered claims made by Quebec Cree Indians and Inuit, however, on 31 January 1978, the Naskapi Indians of Quebec signed a parallel agreement - the Northeastern Quebec Agreement - and joined the institutions established under the 1975 accord.

The James Bay and Northern Quebec agreement has been further modified by some 20 additional accords affecting the implementation and details of the original agreement, as well as expanding their provisions. Furthermore, the Canadian Constitution Act entrenched in the constitution of Canada all the rights granted in native treaties and land agreements signed before 1982, giving the rights outlined in the original agreement the status of constitutional rights.

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The James Bay agreement touches on a number of subjects and, as the first Canadian native treaty since the 1920s, it bears little resemblance to previous treaties but has become the prototype of the many agreements made since then. It established a number of provisions, principally in the following areas:

  • Lands
The traditional lands of the signatories are divided into three categories:
Category I: Lands reserved exclusively for the use of native Quebecers.
Category II: Lands owned by the province of Quebec but in which hunting, fishing and trapping rights are reserved for natives and over which forestry, mining and tourism development authority is shared.
Category III: Lands in which some specific hunting and harvesting rights are reserved for natives, but all other rights are shared subject to a joint regulatory scheme.
Roughly 14,000km2 fall into Category I, 150,000km2 in Category II, and over a million square kilometres - some three-quarters of all land in Quebec - are in Category III.
  • Environmental and Social Protections
The accord provides for two consultative committees composed of native and government officials, to advise the government on the environmental and social consequences of policies. Below the 55th latitude, the James Bay Advisory Committee on the Environment has this responsibility, while in Inuit areas in the far north it belongs to the Kativik Environmental Advisory Committee. The accord also established a system of environmental evaluation for new development projects involving the oversight of both the federal government of Canada and the Quebec provincial government as well as native governance bodies.
  • Economic development and financial compensation
In return for their signatures, the governments of Quebec and Canada and Hydro Quebec agreed to provide northern Quebec natives with extensive direct financial compensation - some CAN$225 million to be managed and used for native economic development through three native-owned development corporations: The Cree Board of Compensation, the Makivik Corporation and the Naskapi Development Corporation.
  • Education
The agreement provided for the establishment of the Kativik School Board for Quebec Inuit, the Cree School Board for Cree areas, and a special school for Naskapi students. The use of native languages for instruction in schools is explicitly encouraged.
  • Local government
Cree and Inuit communities in Quebec were established as municipalities with local governments. In addition, the Cree Regional Authority and the Kativik Regional Government were established to provide regional governments for the Quebec Cree and Inuit respectively.
  • Health and Social Services
Responsibility for health and social services in all fully native territories is the responsibility of regional government institutions established separately for the Cree and Inuit: the Cree Regional Board of Health and Social Services of James Bay and the Kativik Health and Social Services Council.

See also

External links

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