Self-government talks heat up as elections near

Page 3

Warm weather has brought more than just geese to the Crees of James Bay. It's also ushered in an unprecedented and wide-ranging discussion among Crees about their future as a people.

Months before Indian Affairs Minister Ron Irwin provoked controversy with his statement that Quebec First Nations can stay in Canada if Quebec separates, Crees were busy debating and planning what to do if a rupture happens. As Quebec enters an election campaign focused on the province's future within Canada, Crees feel that they, too, should discuss their relationships with Canada, Quebec and with each other.

Whichever option Crees do choose, they firmly believe it's up to them to decide and no one else. They believe Quebec has no claim to their lands and no right to leave with Cree territory should Quebec leave Canada.

"The Cree people are neither cattle nor property, to be transformed from sovereignty to sovereignty or from master to master," said Grand Chief Matthew Coon Come in a recent speech in Germany. "We do not speak to prevent the Quebecois from achieving their legitimate goals. But we will not permit them to do so on Cree territory and at the expense of our fundamental rights, including our right to self-determination."

Crees and other First Nations in Quebec are at a crucial point in their histories as people, facing what some observers say is their most important challenge since 1492. The next year or two could decide the fate of James Bay Crees and other First Nations in Quebec for the next century. In upcoming months, many Cree leaders believe that they will have the opportunity to reserve 500 years of European conquest - to transform their right to self-determination into a living reality.

The exact form that reality will take is unclear. It will take shape only through debate among Crees about which option best suits their interests - going with a sovereign Quebec, staying with Canada or going it alone as an independent country, the first Aboriginal-run state on the Turtle Island.

The process will continue to unfold whether or not Quebec actually leaves. Even before the provincial election, expected in September, Crees are entering high-powered negotiations with both Quebec and Canada about re-defining their relationships. Now is when they feel they have their greatest amount of leverage to achieve true self-government.

Crees in particular feel they have extraordinary leverage with both Quebec and Canada because of the $20-billion James Bay hydroelectric complex sitting smack in the middle of their traditional lands. Robert Bourassa wrote in his book Power From The North that Crees are sitting on more hydro-power than the proven oil and gas reserves of America's 10 largest energy companies. Quebec could collapse economically if it lost this resource-rich territory, while for Canada, an alliance with the Crees could prove to be an invaluable tool to obtain leverage over any sovereignist-minded Quebec government.

For Crees, self-government means full control over their lands, especially over development. Not co-management, but full control over what gets built and what gets cut down. And not just over hydro projects, which have already flooded an area the size of Lake Erie, but also over forestry and mining which have razed thousands of square kilometres of Cree traplines and yanked billions of dollars out of their land resources.

An unprecedented militancy has taken hold among the Crees just as Quebec enters an election that will be fought on the issue of its own sovereignty. The Grand Council of the Crees is planning community meeting to discuss sovereignty in upcoming weeks, and a Cree Nation Gathering is scheduled for this summer to debate the future of Cree society.

Bob Epstein, an adviser to the Grand Council of the Crees, brims with excitement about the opportunity Crees now have to define their future.

"Essentially, you're getting a chance to redo what happened 500 years ago. This is a really, reall important issue for the Crees. It's by far the most important issue," explains Epstein.

It's even more important, in his opinion, than the controversial $13-billion Great Whale River Project. That project is possible only because Crees at this point don't have true self-determination.

"When Natives have tried raising issues of self-determination, no one has listened to them. But now that a province is raising them, it opens the door to Natives too."

Crees have support from public opinion, international law and even some prominent Quebec separatists. In an Angus Reid-Southam News poll in 1992, a majority of those polled in Quebec (58 per cent) and in Canada (80 per cent) said First Nations within a sovereign Quebec should have the option of choosing independence.

In 1991, Daniel Turp, a legal adviser to the Bloc Quebecois and professor of international law at the Universite de Montreal, told the Belanger-Campeau Commission studying Quebec sovereignty that Aboriginal peoples have a right to self-determination

"at the same level" as Quebec.

"These peoples (Natives and Quebecers) are going to have to together because they both have the right to self-determination," Turp said. "In terms of legitimacy, the Aboriginal peoples, the Aboriginal nations on their territory, are quite ahead of the francophones of Quebec."

Independence is a last-resort solution for the Crees, one part would be wrenching and painful for everyone.

It doesn't have to come to that, say Cree leaders. What's really needed isn't more pain, they say, but a revolution in the relationship between Quebec, Canada and Aboriginal peoples, to establish a partnership of equals.

"We don't want to fight you. We are not enemies," Grant Chief Coon Come said in a recent speech in Quebec City. "All we ask is common courtesy. You are in our land. We have no other. And if you think about it - neither do you."