tion in northern Quebec includes a vast area
which has important and economically inter-
esting resources in the energy, mining and
forestry sectors. In the early 1970’s, Quebec
announced its intention to proceed with the
construction of the world’s largest hydroelec-
tric project in the world. Quebec did this with-
out consulting our communities and we only
heard about it through the radio. Since this
project would flood a very significant portion
of our traditional territory where our people
actively pursued a traditional way of life, we
resisted. We launched court challenges to
stop the project, and although unsuccessful,
our opposition led the courts to require that
the province and the federal governments ne-
gotiate a treaty with us. The result was the
James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement
of 1975. We had difficult struggles to get both
levels of government to respect the Agree-
ment, and we needed to oppose future hydro-
electric projects because our rights under that
Agreement were not being respected.
In their totality, all these agreements confirm
that nothing can happen within our traditional
territory without our involvement and without
our communities benefiting from any develop-
JULY 2018 | BUSINESS ELITE CANADA 29
