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Keeping your community covered. We're committed to producing high-quality, fact-based news and information that gives you the facts in this community we call home. If our work has helped you stay informed, take action, or feel more connected to Windham County – please give now to help us reach our goal of raising $150,000 by December 31st.
Keefer Irwin has made some unsubstantiated claims in her column about Hydro-Quebec in the June 9 issue of The Commons that should be addressed.
Contrary to her claim that no one was paying attention to the Cree Nation's concerns about the Hydro-Quebec development, I went on my own and found and read a copy of the central agreement between Hydro-Quebec and the Grand Council of the Cree (Eeyou Istchee), a document that set out in exquisite detail the terms of an agreement between Hydro-Quebec and the Cree Nation. It is the first major treaty between the Cree Nation and Hydro-Quebec.
There have been at least two subsequent agreements based on the terms in the Bouhounan Agreement. The agreement provisions, to name a few, deal with relocation of people, homes, relics, burial sites, employment for the first peoples and cultural respect for fish and wildlife as both food and cultural icons.
As an outsider, what role do I have if the Cree Nation chooses to come to terms with Hydro-Quebec? To me, it does not seem that it is my place to say that either party is wrong and disagree with them. And as an elected official, I know for certain that no act of the legislature ever, ever, ever makes everyone happy, so, yes, there are likely to be some who oppose these agreements, but if you cannot believe a document signed by the Grand Council of the Crees, the Cree Regional Authority, the Eastman Band, the Nemaska Band, the Waskaganish Band and the Cree Nation of Mistissini, then all public documents should be mistrusted, including some of our iconic documents.
One of the better-recognized calls to environmental action over the past two decades has been to “think globally, act locally.” Sometimes "act locally" means personal lifestyle changes: reduce our trash output by recycling, drive our cars smarter and less often, and just plain consume less. In these tough financial...
