Grand Chief Matthew Coon-Come took time out of his busy schedule in late November for a wide-ranging two-hour interview with Nation editor William Nicholls about the state of the Cree nation. Coon-Come spoke about his personal motivations for getting involved in politics, about the need for reorganizing Cree economic entities, and laid out his vision for the Grand Council of the Crees.
The Nation: First, I’d like to congratulate you on your recent re-election. When did you first decide to get into politics?
Matthew Coon-Come: When the consultations started on the first phase of the James Bay Agreement, I was a very young man. I was 16 years old. At that time in Mistissini, I was nudged on by friends who heard all the elders and hunters speak. There was no youth representation. I felt I should get up and say something. I learned a lot just doing that because I spoke about the culture, about our way of life. My grandfather would take me to the shores and force me to sit in the circles of the elders. I heard all the trappers’ stories and I could explain it so well I spoke like a trapper. When I got up, I told it from the angle that my father and grandfather would tell it. And I got a standing ovation. I was so proud. But when I got home, my dad said, “You’ve learned nothing. You’re like the ‘White man.’ He can explain the culture so well, but he can’t hunt. He’d get lost in the bush.” I was so mad. I wanted to hit him because I knew he was right. I walked out. Good thing I came to my senses. I said, “You teach me.” So he taught me and that was one of the biggest lessons I learned. When you speak for your people, you’d better know, you’d better practice, you’d better do it.
Was there anyone at that time who had a big influence on you?
When I was in residential school, I remember when Martin Luther King spoke in Washington. He spoke with such great vision. I saw him lead the riots and I saw him on TV. I thought to myself, that’s nothing new. That’s happening to native people. It made me look at where I came from. I said to myself, if he can do it then maybe I can do it. That’s where I started.
Are those reasons still valid for you?
You’re young at the age of 16. When you’re a university student, you have different dreams. But I think it’s more impractical when you live back home and see the conditions that your people live in. You see other communities and you ask yourself why are our people treated differently? You begin to read the laws of the land and see there is a special law that dictates every move you make, and the minister’s somebody in Ottawa making decisions for you. And then you question that.
Why is that?
My belief is that we cannot just stand back and take it. We have to stand up and fight for what we believe in. We will no longer accept the plunder of our lands, the flooding of our lands. To fight this, we have to change the laws and, unfortunately, in order to do it you have to be down south because that’s where the decisions are made. The price is heavy to anybody who wants to do that because you’re separated from your family. At the same time, you can’t exercise something you fought so hard to protect.
I was wondering about that. How does your family cope with you being down south a lot.
I’ve done this since I was 21 and it doesn’t get any easier. It’s more difficult. My kids are growing. I have a 16-year-old son. I have a 14-year-old daughter, and a seven-year-old boy, and a six year-old daughter and one that’s going to turn three. Five children. It’s hard for a mother to try to raise five children alone. It creates a lot of anxiety, a lot of stress, and a lot of pressure. My teenagers are growing up and they want their dad. No woman should be put in that position. This time around, I’m rearranging my schedule. I think I’m home every weekend now and I’m going to be home every Monday and Tuesday. I told my people, you want to meet with me, you come and see me. When I’m staying with my family, my family’s the priority.
People said you were exhausted at the end of your last term. If so, why did decide to run again? I’m not sure if I was exhausted. It was a rough summer. I lost three people. My nephew lost his son. My wife lost a nephew, a 19-year-old, drowned in an accident. We helped raise that child. And my father’s aunt, Julie Coon-Come, passed away. All that happened within three weeks. Every week I was at the graveyard. It had nothing to do with my work.
One thing about your personal life is that you’re Pentecostal. How does religion come into your politics?
It’s not religion. Religion is when you go to church every Sunday, then you do the same things you do on Monday. It’s more personal. I believe in the Resurrection. I believe that Christ died and rose again. That he’s coming back again. If anyone believes that, whether he’s Pentecostal, Baptist or Catholic, I’m in the same group. I believe I should strive to improve that relationship in the way that I live, sharing, helping, all the values native people have. If you’re a trapper on the land, you know there’s a Creator. You’re in tune with the land, you’re in tune with the animals…
What have you learned from politics?
That you’ve got to fight to get what you want. That you’ve got to pressure the governments. Embarrass them. Take them to court. Counter their public relations campaign. You cannot do it sitting behind a desk. You have to be out there, lobbying, motivating people. We’re a minority. We’re only 12,000 and we cannot do it alone. So you’ve got to be able to motivate people to take up your cause. Your cause can be their struggle. I think we’ve succeeded in doing that. Talk about issues not just in terms of how they affect Crees, but as global issues affecting fundamental human rights. What you do to the landscape is a global issue. How you treat the aboriginal people is a national issue, if not a global issue. But the strength comes from the people. Because we are still a society that has its own culture. We are still living off the land. That’s what makes us unique. It makes us strong. As long as there’s a Cree out there on the land, that’s what makes us different.
What are your priorities for this term in office?
There are several. Back home, you cannot be concerned about the right to self-determination, principles of self-government, debates on the extinguishment clause or policies of the government and the way it treats native people, when you’re concerned about a job, how you’re going to feed your family, if you’ve got a roof over your head, and the education of your kids, whether you can go out on the land again because it’s going to be flooded. Those are the preoccupations of the people at the local level. You have to address them. And that work will continue because we have about 250 Indian bureaucrats who are working in the band offices. You have enough people out there who can address these issues, and I’m sure they will. And of course the Grand Council will help them in whatever way we can. But I think the real issue is that so much of our natural resources have been extracted and we’re not the beneficiaries of those resources. Outside people come in, forestry companies, mining companies and certainly Hydro-Quebec, and they walk away with our natural resources. We get nothing. We’re left with begging and waiting for handouts. I think the only way to change that is going to a table and sitting down and negotiating. We have fought in courts, we have done a public relations campaign, we pressured the government at the national and international levels. And I think it’s almost to the point where we’re coming to a meeting of minds. We also have to be concerned about the possible secession of Quebec. That can happen within two or three years and we cannot just wait for secession to happen. We have to be ready before it becomes an international mess.
Did you discuss these issues at this year’s Annual General Assembly?
I think it’s one of the best general assemblies we ever had. It was different because we are a generation at the portal of history. We’ve talked about everything under the sun, our way of life, our traditions, our customs. But never once have we made speeches about the future generations, our children, and our children’s children. At this meeting, we looked at the study of policing that we did, health and social services, the increase in suicides. It hurts because you’re talking about incest, child molestation, child abuse, violence against women, spouse abuse, sexual abuse. Those are painful issues and you cannot just blame the government, you cannot blame Hydro-Quebec. That’s where you get started on the healing process. Our people are hurt. They’ve gone through a lot. When you deal with that, it’ll make us stronger people. In that sense, I think we’ve broken the ice. But it’s also encouraging to know there are 500 people in post-secondary. We’re now at the crossroads. We have to analyze where we came from and what instruments we used to get where we are. We adopted foreign instruments for the sake of getting funding. We’re also reassessing our relationship with Quebec, with Canada and looking at ourselves, trying to develop a vision for the future. That cannot be done by the Grand Council. It can only be done when we go to the grassroots and do it by community consultation. Get everybody involved and see what type of government we have because we cannot deal with the issues that are before us if we meet once a year in our annual general assembly. It’s unrealistic. It was good when we started. We did not have all these companies before. The only problem we had was the threat of megaprojects. But through the years we’ve created entities like the Trappers’ Association, CreeCo. and all its subsidiaries, the Cree School Board, Cree Health Board. They’re all tabling reports and we don’t have time to review them and question the way they manage and invest our money. I think it’s time to change the way we govern ourselves. We need more of a Cree way, more Cree culture, debates, discussion, consensus. We actually tried getting hold of one of the annual reports and were told that while the Grand Council was a public entity, Cree Construction was not. Is this the manner in which our entities serve the Crees? We are public companies. That’s what we’ve said all along. The Nation was under the assumption that Cree Construction was a Cree company and, as Crees, we can look at its annual reports. You see, this is the problem. The problem is that CreeCo. does its reports and tables them at the annual assembly, but they aren’t passed around. I guarantee you they’ll get stuck in the Chief’s office. Ask your chief for a copy and see if he’ll give it to you. It was probably filed somewhere. It’s a foreign system and it’s a system that we really don’t know how to use. You might find it under “c” for construction. The people who receive the reports are not disseminating them. When the Grand Council makes decisions and those guys go back home, we anticipate that they’ll call a band meeting. But often they don’t. If they do, they don’t invite us and they take a different position because now their people are questioning things, but they don’t have the answers because we are on the front lines and they don’t invite us. This system does not work. We table those reports and we expect those people who are supposedly community representatives to take them back to the people. We have so many companies for only 12,000 Crees. We have different people in Mistissini for Cree Construction. Thomas Coon sits there, but then you have another representative on the Board of Compensation, Buckley Petawabano, and he decides on whether to give money that’s made as a request to CreeCo. on behalf of its subsidiary, Cree Construction. That’s two different guys. Do they report to their people? I don’t know. And then you have the chiefs sitting on the Grand Council/CRA. Our system is not working the way it should. We’ve expanded. We’ve created monsters and we’d better cut some heads off those monsters. If we don’t, we’re going to run into these type of problems you’re talking about.
We understand the Great Whale Environmental Review Office may be closed due to lack of revenue or funding. When we signed the Memorandum of Understanding, we secured some funding, and when we originally submitted a budget, it was way over what we actually got. They didn’t give us half what we thought we’d need in order to carry out adequate studies to participate in the making of the guidelines of the environmental review. But we threatened at that time that if they didn’t give us the revenue or funding, then we’d have no reason or cause to participate. It would be meaningless because our people wouldn’t be able to properly analyze the report that Hydro-Quebec will submit. But I think we’ve dealt with that because we pressured the government to contribute financially. They haven’t committed funds, but they’ve appointed their people. But if at any point we don’t have the funding, we will pull out. Why participate in a process that’s a sham? Is there supposed to be a Quebec campaign against the Great Whale project? When we started the campaign against Great Whale, we did what we could in Quebec. But in the end, we analyzed our position and realized that it’s the Americans who are buying the energy. They’re the ones who are going to affect our lives. They are the ones who are going to be putting in the dollars that Quebec needs to start. So we decided to go to America. And that hasn’t changed because Hydro-Quebec is still out there looking for additional contracts. So our efforts will still be there, but that is not to say we shouldn’t be in Quebec. We have to be in Quebec because we said we wanted a debate. We have set up a mechanism in which we can be involved and will continue to be involved. If you oppose something, you have to come up with alternatives and you have to justify your opposition. So there’s a lot of work before us. It’s certainly not out of the goodness of Hydro-Quebec’s heart or the government of Quebec’s heart to say OK to us. We have to use political pressure and our PR campaign.
Quebec Native Affairs Minister Christos Sirros seems to be under the impression that we’re open to negotiations on Great Whale. He’s lumped talks on the project in with talks on economic development. Any comment?
Christos Sirros can say whatever he wants. He can try to give the impression that the Crees have mellowed, that the Crees have decided to stop their campaign. Well, he’s dead wrong. People are saying, we don’t want Great Whale. That’ll continue. But at the same time, Quebec has made promises and not kept them. They’ve signed an agreement saying that they’d give certain services and programs to Cree people and those have to be addressed. Not only with Quebec but also with the government of Canada. We have to pursue those if we can get a table. I realize it’s difficult. On the one hand, we are pushing them, taking them to court, and they say we are embarrassing them. At the same time, you want to go to the table. At some point in time, there has to be a meeting of minds. You’ve taken the governments to court a lot of times and in fact you are still in court.
What court cases are currently active?
The majority of them are filed. We have files at the National Energy Board (NEB) because Hydro-Quebec through the government of Quebec asked for an increase in their licence to export energy. In essence, they have avoided public hearings and a public debate. I think the NEB acted in bad faith. I think we have a good case on them. We have the EM1 court case. We lost the one in federal court but there’s also the provincial case. It’s important to find out because of the Great Whale and NBR projects. We have to find out. We have a court case on Great Whale the Coon-Come case in which we will apply for an injunction if they go ahead with Great Whale. We are identifying the unfulfilled obligations of Canada and Quebec in every section of the James Bay Agreement and that in itself is alot of work. We have a couple of cases that we are not paying for in the U.S. that are being pursued by interest groups questioning the way contracts were done.
Do you think we will ever allow any more dams on our land through our choice?
Right now, the Crees are saying no. But you can say “no” all you want and the government will still go ahead and do it. That’s a possibility. There are some provisions in the Agreement that are not clear. EM1 was not clear. It was part of a plate, part of the technical descriptions. It was a project that the Crees technically agreed to. Because of the design changes, it required Cree consent. It called for additional negotiations. But our position is that we don’t want any more dams.
Both you and Kenny Blacksmith have come out very sharply in criticism of the economic situation in the communities. Would you care to comment on that?
Knowing that the land is getting smaller and the population is increasing, the new generation will need education more and will not be able to go out on the land like before. That puts pressure on the communities. You need essential service-oriented projects like gas stations and motels and restaurants and so on. But you cannot do development if you do not benefit from the natural resources and if you do not have the funding to carry out the feasibility studies. More importantly, you cannot go into things like forestry because those rights have already been given away. The same with mining. You try tourism and the government says that’s where we want to put that park or an outfitting camp. Everywhere you go, you run into a wall because the government put into place its own institutions to prevent you from having economic opportunity. We understood we had a say in the development. We would be partners in the territory. But that is not happening. Other people are benefitting from the extraction of those natural resources. And we are left with those little communities and doing Mickey Mouse projects knowing full well at the end of the day that we are not getting anywhere. We can build the best programs, let’s say in forestry, and you invest a lot of money in machinery. But you don’t have the wood rights. Somebody else has them. One of the worst things in the Cree nation is that we have not come together. We compete among ourselves. I think that weakens our economic potential in the territory. We are divided. We spend millions of dollars on those economic development companies and they damn well fall apart because the bands say, “no, we’ll do it ourselves.” They haven’t come to a meeting of minds. We’re still at the stage of bickering and backbiting.
You’ve been talking to the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. In the past these commissions appeared to be government window dressing. What is your opinion of this one?
When it was first announced at an Assembly of First Nations meeting by the minister, I cited the problems right across Canada for native people. From the low-level flights among the Innu to Clayoquot Sound. These are the problems and you are going to study them for the next three years. I’d hate to see the government wait until the report is finished. By that time, the trees will be cut and the dams will be built. The report will be useless. I still do believe that. But I also believe the Royal Commission can at least for the record have an opportunity to hear from the people. So that the future generations can see the problems that we’ve encountered. At some point, you cannot keep fighting and fighting and fighting and opposing and blocking roads. You cannot exist like that. Someday you have to come with solutions and recommendations. I don’t think one is a good leader if you just jump up and down, and say we don’t agree with this, we don’t like you and you can’t do that because we say so. You’ve got to came out with something constructive. We have to give the future generations a solution.
What did the recent federal election mean for the Crees?
Unfortunately, the Prime Minister was there during the negotiations in the mid-70’s with the Quebec government and signed the White Paper that said Ottawa was assuming a stance of “alert neutrality.” I hope that this time it will be better for the Cree nation. I think we’re in a strong position because of the possibility of Quebec seceding from Canada. We all know there are factions within the Grand Council, different viewpoints on what our strategy should be. Could you give us an idea of what they are and how you would resolve the differences? I think it’s healthy to have different opinions, to have different approaches. If we all had the same viewpoint, it would be very boring. The government of Quebec has the Liberals and the PQ. The Canadian government has many parties, too. We as leaders face the future so we have to weigh all the pros and all the cons of any decision we make.
Do you think native leaders across Canada are accountable to the people?
As far as I know, the Cree nation is the only one that elects its leaders. So that gives us more strength, more power for the Grand Chief. In other communities, he’s elected by the chiefs themselves. So he doesn’t have a base or stronghold. People feel like he is really a bureaucrat. There is a need to address the ways we do things to make native leaders more accountable. Like what is the relationship between the Assembly of First Nations and the Crees? The Crees and the First Nations of Quebec? What is the common ground? The Crees have been active in helping natives across Canada, haven’t they? We helped the Lubicon nation, Bear Island, the Innu with the low-level flights, the Davis Inlet people, the people in B.C. We mention them in our presentations. When we meet with officials. When they ask us to speak at their general assemblies and share those experiences, there are lessons we’ve learned and I think we should pass them on.
There has been some criticism of one of our Cree companies in the media Cree Construction and its ties to Beaver Asphalte, a company with close Liberal ties. What do you think about this situation?
If you want to get into economic ventures, you have to look at the present status of the Cree nation. You don’t have the technical and resource people to do it, and you can’t benefit from certain contracts. Cree Construction had made a $5-million profit over the years and they’re the ones who have been carrying the other companies of CreeCo. They’ve done really well and have created over 300 jobs. We can’t go ask those guys, hey, what the hell are you doing? They’ll tell you, go jump in a lake. Hopefully, joint ventures are a stepping stone to having your own people being able to run this kind of a job. You don’t see it as any type of a scandal? No, because when you get a contract, you can subcontract to whomever you want. If those people get themselves into trouble, that’s their problem. We have a contract for them to do something, and we expect those people to carry out their obligations. Crees haven’t fully understood how it works. These are new things for us. When they look at it from their perspective, they say, well, there are more white people working out there. Why is that? I think the weakness of Cree Construction, and the Cree nation as a whole, is that we haven’t educated our people. All they know is, hey, I didn’t get the job. Where do you see us, the Cree nation, 100 years from now, and what’s being done today to make sure we achieve that? We have to give hope and some form of peace to that generation. We’ve got to solve the problems now. The young people will not want to deal with issues of self-determination. They want to deal with the problems of today, the problems of what they see, social problems, policing, health, education. We’ve got to address those today. If you don’t address them today, those people will never be interested in talking about the right to self-determination because they’re more concerned about their day-to-day lives. That’s the first thing. Leaders are elected to think of the future. If anything, that’s your most important responsibility. There’s no one else who’s in a position to do it.
And that entails what?
When you look at what is happening on the Cree lands, you see the natural resources being extracted and you see the policies of the government. You’ve got to change these policies. We can be self-sufficient. But how? You can do it by having a say in the development of the territory. If we have a say, we will no longer have to depend on the government for handouts. We will be beneficiaries of the natural resources and can spend them the way we think they should be spent. That’s the ultimate objective. So the people who live off the land will be able to become the decision-makers. Then we’ll be the true masters of our own society. We need to start a belated nation-building. We’re at the crossroads. That means we have to assess where we came from. The structures we have created are overwhelming right now. We can’t have 20 entities for 12,000 Crees. That’s ridiculous. We have so many people who are appointed and elected by the Cree nation to represent the Board of Compensation, School Board, Health Board. Meanwhile, the chief is wondering what is going on. We’ve got to reassess all these entities. I would like to see pooling all our funds together. Can you imagine the economic clout we’d have if we did that? If we did that, we’d be able to promote our own economic development. We would decide on the loans, on the grants, you name it.
One last question. If you had a magic wand, and you could wave it once and anything that you wanted could happen, what would you do with it?
[laughter] What kind of a question if that? We live in the real world, [more laughter] That’s not worth answering.
Is there anything you wanted to add?
The greatest challenge of the Cree Nation is, will we be able to work together? You hear a lot of political rhetoric about it. But, in reality, I see we’re slowly pulling apart, trying to do our own thing. Bands doing their own thing, band corporations doing their own thing. I think we have to decide if we will be able to work together. If we can’t, it will be detrimental to ourselves. I think that will be the challenge.
