Road to recognition: MoCreebec’s acceptance as the 11th Cree community paves way for provincial and federal negotiations
A resolution passed at the Grand Council of the Crees/Cree Nation Government (GCC/CNG) council board meeting November 22 seeks to make good on a 40-year-old promise.
“It was recognized during the negotiations of the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement (JNBQA) that there were Eeyou Cree living in Ontario,” said Allan Jolly, Chief the MoCreebec Eeyoud. “Our leaders back then recognized us then and promised a time would come where the issue would be resolved.”
The resolution, adopted unanimously, officially makes MoCreebec the 11th Cree community of Eeyou Istchee.
The road to recognition as an Eeyou community began in the summer of 2016. “We went to the 10 Cree communities in the past 16 months to tell the people our story,” said Jolly. “We told them that the presence of Cree in Ontario goes back a long time, it’s not a recent development.”
Because of the community’s location (the southern end of Moose Factory Island), the Ontario and Canadian governments have viewed them as part of the Treaty 9 peoples. MoCreebec has always maintained this is simply untrue.
According to Jolly, the history of the Eeyou Cree in Ontario likely goes back 200 years, and possibly much longer – a timeframe that predates the founding of Ontario and the northern extension of the Ontario-Quebec border, as well as the signing of Treaty 9.
GCC Executive Director Bill Namagooose explained that the resolution doesn’t grant voting rights to MoCreebec but is still an important condition to negotiating the community’s unique rights with the governments of Ontario and Canada.
“The MoCreebec members have always possessed rights and benefits under the JBNQA. Those can never be taken away,” said Namagoose. “But to have the right as a community to access water, sewage and infrastructure, they would have to be recognized as a Cree community by Canada, Quebec, Ontario and the Crees.”
The political recognition of MoCreebec is necessary to build a political foundation for the community, noted Namagoose.
“But you can’t build a community on a piece of paper,” he said. “You need land.”
The next step is to negotiate a complementary agreement to the JNBQA. And Chief Jolly believes the political climate is now right in order to “add substance and clarity to the legal framework needed to establish a MoCreebec community in Ontario.”
It’s been a long road to get this point. Jolly says he has no illusions that the rest of the road will be easy, but recognition from the GCC certainly helps in “making things right.”
“In 1985, the federal government essentially told us to forget about the JNBQA,” Jolly noted. “We couldn’t do that, because that’s our treaty, the treaty we’re written into. Even our Elders told us, ‘Don’t forget about the JBNQA’.”
Jolly expressed gratitude for the support. “I want to say thank you to each of the 10 Cree communities and GCC who supported and passed resolutions in support of our goal and purpose,” he said. “I was overwhelmed with the reception we got, and we felt there was a lot of reconnection with the people. It’s something I’ll never forget.”
GRAND COUNCIL OF THE CREES (EEYOU ISTCHEE) / CREE NATION GOVERNMENT – COUNCIL BOARD
Resolution No.: 2017-XX
RE: POLITICAL RECOGNITION OF THE COMMUNITY OF MOCREEBEC EEYOUD
WHEREAS the MoCreebec Eeyou are members of the Cree Nation of Eeyou Istchee and beneficiaries of the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement;
WHEREAS Eeyou Istchee transcends the territorial boundaries of the Province of Quebec, and comprises the ancestral and traditional lands which have sustained us and which we have occupied since time immemorial, including lands in what is now the Province of Ontario;
WHEREAS the Eeyou, the Cree Nation of Eeyou Istchee, has owned, lived in, governed and protected Eeyou Istchee for millennia and since time immemorial;
WHEREAS the MoCreebec Eeyou and their ancestors form an important part of the significant history of occupation of lands in Ontario by members of the Cree Nation of Eeyou Istchee;
WHEREAS the Grand Council of the Crees (Eeyou Istchee) and the Cree Nation Government are committed to assisting the Eeyou to affirm, exercise, protect, enlarge and have recognized and accepted the rights, claims and interests of the Eeyou of Eeyou Istchee, including in respect of lands located in what is now Ontario;
WHEREAS the Grand Council of the Crees (Eeyou Istchee) and the Cree NationGovernment continue to advance, pursue and defend the rights and the unsettled claims of the Cree Nation of Eeyou Istchee in Ontario through proceedings before the Ontario Superior Court of Justice;
WHEREAS the Grand Council of the Crees (Eeyou Istchee) and the Cree Nation Government support the MoCreebec Eeyou in their struggle to achieve proper recognition of their community of MoCreebec Eeyoud and of its place within the Cree Nation of Eeyou Istchee; and
WHEREAS the MoCreebec Eeyou, acting through their Chief and Council, have requested the Grand Council of the Crees (Eeyou Istchee)/Cree Nation Government formally express its support for their development and self-determination as the eleventh community of the Cree Nation of Eeyou Istchee;
BE IT RESOLVED:
THAT the Grand Council of the Crees (Eeyou Istchee)/Cree Nation Government hereby confirm its recognition of the MoCreebec Eeyou, represented by their elected Chief and Council, as forming MoCreebec Eeyoud, the eleventh community of the Cree Nation of Eeyou Istchee; and
THAT the Grand Council of the Crees (Eeyou Istchee)/Cree Nation Government shall support the development and self-determination of MoCreebec Eeyoud.