MONTREAL—In 1971, there were six Cree villages situated in northern Quebec, around the eastern coast of James Bay.

Only one was connected to the outside world by road, but they somehow managed to force the Quebec government and the provincial utility provider, Hydro-Quebec, into a deal that would give them compensation and unprecedented control over their peoples’ health, education and development in return for the right to flood swaths of their ancestral land.

That deal was The James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement of 1975, a deal that would cause the fates of the indigenous people on living on either side of James Bay to diverge. The west coast, which lies in the province of Ontario, was flooded with frustration, despair and, quite frequently, with water.

It includes the Attawapiskat and Kashechewan reserves so frequently in the news, whether for the recent suicide crisis, for the poor quality of the drinking water or the many offshoots of poverty and isolation.

The west coast still has many challenges, including a housing shortage and health problems, but the Cree communities have been flooded with chances to forge their own destiny.

Much of it is thanks to a 2002 deal that allowed continued Hydro-Quebec development in return for a $3.5-billion compensation deal spread out over 50 years.

The Cree Nation of Wemindji is one of nine communities on the Quebec side of James Bay. With a population of 1,500, Chief Dennis Georgekish says his people are still dealing with the historical abuses and injustices that face all First Nations in Canada, but self-government means that their present challenges are closer to those of the First World than the Third World.

The conversation has been edited and condensed.

Star: Do you remember what it was like in Wemindji before 1975? Is it fair to say that that’s when things started to change?

Georgekish: In a way it did. It was sometimes a disturbance. For me, I’ve noticed through the years that it does change the community economy-wise … We’ve been at it for the last 40 years. We’re still working on how to improve our communities the best way we can. It’s not focused so much on the government and what those outside can provide. It’s the focus on how we can develop our people in terms of jobs.

Star: What was life like before the James Bay agreement?

Georgekish: I was starting high school when the James Bay project was announced. The way of life for the Cree, the hunting and fishing was disrupted. It was a way of life. If you go back, we always depended on the land to hunt and fish. The agreement did bring what we have today, like housing, but the social impact was something we’ve had to deal with for years.

Star: It changes the way of life.

Georgekish: It does, but in a way it’s good that we still had the option. Even today, we still have people that hunt and fish out there year-round.

S: What has self-government allowed your community to do?

G: In Wemindji we look at how to take advantage of what’s there in terms of economic development and focus on how to develop our youth in a way that we can be self-sufficient.

S: What are the challenges you are facing right now as a community?

G: Our focus is on training — to be able to develop our young people in a way to be able to take on that role that, at one time, was provided by outside government officials. Now we take on the roles … In the Cree Nation of Wemindji, our staff is 100-per-cent Cree… But when you look at town planning and in a lot of areas where we need professionals, we have to hire from the outside. That’s where there’s still a lot of work to be done … In the area of civil engineering and construction. There are young people out there in the universities that eventually will take on that role, so that we’re not dependent too much on the government.

S: That must be a great feeling, a source of pride.

G: It’s a lot of work. It’s still a lot of work ahead of us. It’s never ending work looking at what we need to do for our community.

S: In 2011, Wemindji signed an agreement with Goldcorp for training and jobs related to the Éléonore gold mine. Has that had an effect yet?

G: It generates jobs. There’s a lot of opportunities. Within the population we do have a number of jobs that were agreed to ... It’s not so much the gold mine giving us the opportunity to get a job. It’s what we’ve already set in place. We want to take full advantage to be able to put our businesses to work, like in construction. We have a construction business and we have a transport company. Whatever we have in the community, we want to utilize all the work that is there so that we hire our own people.

S: What problems are you facing? I’ve heard about housing and overcrowding. Is that a problem?

G: It’s an issue that we have overall that needs to be addressed in the whole Cree nation …

S: But is there more private housing in your community and across the Cree Nation than, perhaps, elsewhere?

G: We see young families come in and they’re buying their own houses. That’s something that’s fairly new. At one time, it was mostly social housing in Wemindji.

S: I don’t want to suggest that your community is paradise or is perfect…

G: It’s far from it.

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S: Every community has its problems.

G: We’ve been working on how to have a better outlook for the future of our children and grandchildren. Our community is still rich in culture, so we need to keep a balance where there’s still people who hunt and fish all year-round and the people who need jobs in the community can focus on the economic prospects.

S: Do you have any difficulty keeping the youth in Wemindji? I imagine they have to leave for college or university.

G: It’s not difficult to keep the community in. But it’s always been a challenge to get our youth to go out there and get an education. Wherever they go — Ottawa or Montreal or Toronto — they always come back before they finish. It’s something that needs to be addressed. We need to keep working on our youth to finish high school, college and university.

S: Why is that?

G: The question’s been asked so many times and nobody really has an answer for it. Like anybody, they are comfortable where they are and where they come from. It’s something that you cannot change as First Nations people. We are Cree first and sometimes it’s difficult for people to live in an area where they don’t know people. Here, everybody knows everybody.

S: Are you confident that the tools are in place for your children and grandchildren to have that better future?

G: We are in a better position to look at how we define our future. We have to work together, never to lose sight of who we are as First Nations people … It’s not that we want to block any development in the future, but we have to be part of it, we have to be players. It’s like with the mining agreement: we don’t want to just sign an agreement. We want to be constantly at the table sitting down with them, saying ‘How can we work together?’ … We’re not focused on them just throwing in royalties, as they call it. We want to be players. We want to take that opportunity to develop our own communities.

Health of a First Nation

James Bay Cree in Quebec benefit from Hydro-Quebec compensation, but aren’t immune from social and health problems affecting other First Nations

Life expectancy

A Cree boy born between 2005 and 2009 can expect to live to the age of 74.6 years old, compared to 78.4 years for males in the rest of Quebec, according to a 2013 Cree Board of Health report. For Cree girls, the life expectancy is 81.8 years, compared to a provincial average of 83.1 years.

Suicide

The suicide rate in Quebec’s nine Cree communities is at or below the provincial average. But the rate of attempted suicides was about eight times higher than that of Quebec, according to a 2010 report by the Cree Board of Health. Suicide attempts are the top cause of hospitalization for Cree females, ahead of falls and automobile accidents.

Housing

There is a shortage of housing in James Bay Cree communities, which has resulted in problems of overcrowding. Census data showed that 16.6 per cent of Cree households are made up of multiple families, compared to just a Quebec-wide average of just 0.8 per cent, according to the 2013 report on Cree population health.

Abuse

Recent health surveys conducted by the Cree Board of Health have reported that half of women and 44 per cent of men said they had been physically abused. Nearly a quarter of men and one-third of women reported having suffered from sexual abuse.

Diabetes

Perhaps the biggest health problem facing James Bay Cree is diabetes, a disease that is associated with poor dietary choices, obesity and lack of physical activity. In 2009, the rate was more than three times higher than that found in the rest of Quebec, according to the 2013 Cree Board of Health report. It’s also a relatively recent phenomenon: Only 2.4 per cent of the population had diabetes in 1983, while the rate was 22.1 per cent by 2011.

From creehealth.org

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