The Northward Diversion of the Eastmain and Opinaca Rivers as Proposed: An Assessment of Impacts on the Native Community at Eastmain Village, Part II – Social and Economic Impacts.

• Main Author: Feit, Harvey A.
• Other Authors: Anthropology
• Format: Report
• Language: English
• Published: 1974
• Subjects: Politics of Impact Assessment; Socio-economic Modeling; Local Expertise; Negotiating Social and Environmental Regimes; Decentralizing Development Planning; James Bay Cree; Eastmain Cree; James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement; Eastmain; James Bay
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/11375/24334

This report was prepared at a time when impact assessment legislation, procedures and bureaucracies were just being developed and initiated by the governments of Canada and Québec. The negotiations initiated by the James Bay Cree with governments in response to the hydro-electric project on their lands included, at their insistence, creating an assessment process for development projects that was specifically designed for the region, and that Cree had jointly designed and would jointly operate. It would be part of what became the James Bay and Northern Québec Agreement. During the negotiations the Cree undertook critical reviews of government assessments as well as initiating assessments of the hydro-electric project, such as this report. These were intended both to contribute to the negotiation of an effective assessment regime, and also to indicate how if negotiations faltered the developers’ impact assessments, which were used to justify the project, could be challenged in public and in court actions by Cree experts and consultants. Anecdotal evidence suggests that these studies contributed to that outcome. This assessment sets out summary evaluations of the impact on the Eastmain Cree of the proposed diversion the Eastmain and Opinaca Rivers toward the La Grande hydro-electric dams in the James Bay region of Quebec. Part I by Alan F. Penn set out the components of the Eastmain subsistence economy. Part II by Harvey A. Feit, included here, examines the social and economic impacts of the proposed development. It is based on information and lessons drawn from Penn’s research at Eastmain and Feit’s earlier research at Waswanipi. The analyses use a modelling approach whereby a series of the most likely logical linkages of actions to impacts is hypothesized, and then these are modified, elaborated and corrected with the research findings from the collaborations of Cree hunters and families with the researchers. The data are summarized and are not presented in detail in this text as the report was prepared for ...