James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement

The James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement was an 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 First Nations 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.

Before the foundation of Canada, the lands of northern Quebec had been a part of Rupert's Land - the territory administered by the Hudson's 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 1895 the region between the province of Quebec and the Hudson Strait became the District of Ungava of the Northwest Territories. In 1898, the border of Quebec was extended north to the Eastmain River. Quebec continued to claim the remaining District of Ungava, north of the Eastmain River, and in 1912 the area was transferred 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 government of 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 and, on 15 November 1973, won an injunction in the Quebec Superior Court blocking hydroelectric development until the province had negotiated an agreement with the natives.

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