“Compared with other Inuit regions in the Far North, we received a lot… but at what cost?” wonders Tunu Napartuk, deputy negotiator for Nunavik self-determination at the Makivik Corporation, the Inuit organization representing Quebec’s Inuit.

Fifty years ago, the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement saved the Inuit and the Cree of Northern Quebec from the flooding of their lands and the total transformation of their way of life. It also marked the beginning of an evolution that profoundly shaped these communities. Canada’s first modern treaty, the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement was gradually implemented, granting the Inuit and the Cree school boards, access to health services, integration into the Canadian economy, and much more.

However, as community leaders point out, the cost was high. In this episode, Tunu Napartuk recounts how the JBNQA arrived in a community that, only twenty years earlier, had been forced to settle. Then, Grand Chief Paul John Murdoch looks back on the historic legal battle and explains how the agreement continues to bring hope to the Cree of Eeyou Istchee.

**Listen to the episode: **

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Narration: James Bay: In 1971, for most Quebecers, it was unknown territory. But for Robert Bourassa, this so-called land of Cain was a promised land.

Robert Bourassa: Developing hydroelectric power meant conquering the North of Quebec!

Ariane Simard Côté: That was the former Premier of Quebec, Robert Bourassa. You have probably heard of him. In this audio clip, Bourassa was speaking about what he believed to be Quebec’s future. An immense network of hydroelectric dams in the northwest of the province, known as the James Bay Project. From the very start, Bourassa called it historic, the project of the century. And he wasn’t wrong. Ancestral Indigenous lands were threatened. A legal battle dragged on for years. And an alliance between the Cree and the Inuit led, in 1975, to the very first modern treaty in Canadian history. Welcome to Canadian Time Machine, a podcast that unpacks the pivotal moments and sometimes the uncomfortable truths of our country’s past. This podcast is funded by Canadian Heritage and produced by The Walrus Lab. I’m your host, Ariane Simard Côté. This is the story of the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement.

Tunu Napartuk: There’s hardly any noise around the centre of Kuujjuaq, even though about 3,000 people live there. Today, it’s like the administrative capital of the region. And in our communities, it only takes five minutes to step outside the village.

Ariane Simard Côté: You’re listening to Tunu Napartuk. Mr. Napartuk served twice as mayor of Kuujjuaq. Today, he’s the deputy negotiator for Nunavik self-determination at Makivik Corporation, the Inuit organization that represents Quebec’s Inuit. Makivik was founded in 1978 as part of the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement.

Tunu Napartuk: There’s hardly any noise. And then you see this wide, almost flat land. Most of it. And further out, you notice these features. The environment, it’s the land. There are almost no trees, and it’s really, truly barren. The air is pure. You can feel the air with the sun, and there’s nothing else. If you go hunting, you’ll find animals. But the first thing you feel is that you’re in a place where there’s no one else. You are all alone. The sense of peace is huge. You can feel it. You can breathe with so much peace.

Ariane Simard Côté: Located north of the 55th parallel, in other words, far up north, Nunavik is about a two-and-a-half-hour flight from Montreal. Its vast territory makes up one third of Quebec’s land area. Around fourteen thousand people live in Nunavik. Between the extreme cold, frozen rivers, snow, caribou, and scrubby vegetation, they make their homes in fourteen different communities. More than 90 percent are Inuit, many of them beneficiaries of the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement.

Tunu Napartuk: If you go hunting, you’ll find where the caribou are. Where are we going to fish? If it’s on the sea, it’s seal hunting, beluga hunting. Caribou is very important. It’s an excellent species, very important, it gives us the nutrition we need, and we eat it raw. That’s the best thing, to have caribou, to eat it raw, sometimes chilled. That’s the best thing. Because a thousand years ago, there was no refrigeration, no stoves to cook it. So, for Inuit, that’s very special. It’s truly a way of life. We smile a lot. We’ve been here in this region for about 3 to 4 000 years, and we call it Nunavik.

Ariane Simard Côté: For thousands of years, the Inuit of Nunavik lived a nomadic life, following the seasons, the animals, the plants, the herbs, and the berries offered by the taiga and the tundra.

Tunu Napartuk: Each family had a camp depending on the season. In winter, they stayed in a place with more fishing, more fish. In summer, it was very close to the sea, to the water, for seal hunting, for beluga hunting. It was really a place where we valued the environment. It wasn’t the people, it wasn’t the Inuit, who decided what kind of day they would have. It was the weather. If the weather was good, they would go hunting. Sometimes, during the nomadic times, men would go hunting for many days, many weeks, even months. That was really the way of life, the family structure, the way of doing things, the responsibilities of a man and a woman, the children… The Inuit structure was perfected over 3 000 years. And then, suddenly, another group of people, strangers to our environment and our way of life, came in and disrupted everything.

Ariane Simard Côté: Everything changed in the 1950s. At that time, the Canadian government forced the Inuit to settle permanently, a drastic change that compelled them to give up the way of life they had known for generations.

Tunu Napartuk: We were put into villages because the government wanted some form of control, to support us. The change was simple, but complicated at the same time. It was really the government, another group of people who didn’t know us at all, who came in and started making decisions on their own, without talking to the Inuit who actually had the experience of this way of life. And the very first decision was to put us into small communities, into villages, so they could have more control.

Ariane Simard Côté: After thousands of years of living off the land, following their own rhythm and customs, the Inuit were forced to adapt, to change almost everything about their way of life. And then, as if that weren’t enough, only twenty years later another major change was looming on the horizon.

Robert Bourassa [ARCHIVAL]: The development of James Bay, my dear friends, is the key to Quebec’s economic progress.

Ariane Simard Côté: In 1971, Quebec’s Liberal Premier, Robert Bourassa, announced the project of the century. Quebec needed jobs, money, energy. And to deliver all of that, Bourassa’s government had a plan: to power the south of the province using the resources of the North. The development of James Bay began soon after. Hydro-Québec quickly launched the construction of massive hydroelectric dams. But there was a problem. These dams would flood Inuit and Cree lands, transforming a once-untouched landscape and threatening these ancestral territories and peoples.

Tunu Napartuk: In the 1970s, Bourassa decided, Yes, we’re going to start the project of the millennium. And that’s when, without consulting the leaders, or the Cree, they really started changing our environment. And the environment, that’s our home. It’s part of our identity. It’s a way of life that is very, very important. We need the land, the environment, to support us. And when a government suddenly decided to change our environment without consulting us, we needed a voice.

Ariane Simard Côté: Together with their neighbours, the Cree of Eeyou Istchee along James Bay, the Inuit of Nunavik launched a historic legal battle. They challenged the Quebec government to gain a voice, government support, and recognition of their right to live on their land. The fight was long and tough. It lasted more than four years and faced many obstacles. But after years of negotiations, the Inuit and the Cree finally succeeded in reaching an agreement with the government. On November 11, 1975, 50 years ago, the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement was signed.

Tunu Napartuk: I was born in 1972. The Agreement was signed in 1975. When I was younger, maybe twelve, thirteen years old, I started to get curious about how decisions were made. Who were our “leaders”? At that time, I could start comparing the Inuit of Nunavik with other Inuit, like in Labrador, Nunavut, or the Northwest Territories. That’s when I started to learn what the James Bay Agreement was all about.

Ariane Simard Côté: The original document, a massive red book, granted the Inuit and the Cree financial compensation, as well as exclusive rights to hunt, fish, and trap on designated lands. Indigenous communities were also given rights over land management, health, and social services, establishing a framework for autonomy and estate management. It took years, however, before these services were actually put in place. At the same time, the Quebec government gained the right to develop part of the region’s vast hydroelectric potential. It’s important to note that the Cree and the Inuit have had different experiences with the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement over the past 50 years. Tunu Napartuk, Inuit leader from Nunavik, speaks on behalf of his community. In the second part of this episode, the Grand Chief of the Eeyou Istchee, Paul John Murdoch, will speak for his.

Tunu Napartuk: For me, it’s simple. And yet, I often say this, it’s also very complicated. The way the negotiations worked back then… it started around ’72 with Quebec and Canada. The stories from the Elders who were there, who talked about the way things were negotiated, I find that very, very unfair. But at the same time, the James Bay Agreement gave us many opportunities today. After 50 years, the things we’ve received, for example, education, were very important. It was important that Inuit be educated in their own way. So, our Kativik school board has an approach that’s quite different from other school boards in the province. That was something very, very important. We worked hard for that. Today, my children can graduate here in the North, but then they can go to Montreal to continue their education, to CEGEP or to university. The costs are automatically covered. That’s available to the Inuit and the Cree under the Agreement. At that level, the Agreement has been very, very important. To have our own municipalities, our own school board, health, and social services… We have representatives who decide what kind of services Inuit should receive. And it’s funded by the government. With that, compared to other Inuit regions in the Far North, in the country, we’ve done well. But at what price? When we signed the James Bay Agreement, the governments signed a contract to support us, to provide the basic support so we could live more comfortably, with representatives who make the decisions on how these services would be provided. But at the same time, we gave up 95, 97% of our land, the Nunavik region, which now officially belongs to Quebec. It doesn’t belong to us. We have the rights to hunt and to travel everywhere, and certain areas are protected exclusively so that, around our communities, we can hunt, that’s part of the Agreement. But the rest, what we call Category III land, belongs to Quebec, and Quebec can decide what to do with it.

Ariane Simard Côté: Nunavik has seen many positive changes over the past 50 years, but serious challenges remain. The scars of the Canadian government’s assimilation policies run deep. According to a report published in 2025 by Quebec’s National Institute of Public Health, the suicide rate, though decreasing, is still twelve times higher than in the rest of the province. As Mr. Napartuk points out in his interview, no road connects Nunavik to the rest of Quebec. Groceries must be flown or shipped in from the south, leading to exorbitant prices in local stores, in a region where, barely 80 years ago, families lived in igloos in the winter and tents made of caribou and seal skins in the summer. Today, the housing shortage has become a full-blown crisis.

Tunu Napartuk: Housing. There aren’t enough social houses. When I was younger, I didn’t know we were in a place, a region, where the houses were designed by the government. They built them all, they provided them, paid for them. I thought that’s how it was everywhere in the province of Quebec, that all the houses were supported by the government. Then at some point I realized, wow! Because of the Agreement, we have social housing, and yet we’re still missing 800, 900 houses across the fourteen communities. So this is an issue, a challenge that affects us enormously, in every way, even in what kind of day we’re going to have today.

Ariane Simard Côté: For Tunu and the other leaders of his community, the path to solving these problems and improving life in Nunavik is clear.

Tunu Napartuk: To have our own government. This is the challenge I have right now with my colleagues, to sit down with the new governments, to find a way for the Inuit to have their own government.

Ariane Simard Côté: As the saying goes, there are always two sides to every story. And when it comes to the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement, those two perspectives are especially important. To share the Cree point of view, the Grand Chief of the Eeyou Istchee, Paul John Murdoch, joins us. Mr. Murdoch, thank you very much for being with us today. So, in fact, it all began in 1971, when the Cree took the Quebec government to court. So, in your view, Mr. Murdoch, what future did they hope to secure for their people by defending their rights in the face of the James Bay Project?

Paul John Murdoch: It’s something particular. I also see myself not only as a Cree, but as a lawyer trained in law. And when we talk about defending our rights, it’s very important to put ourselves in context. In 1971, Indigenous title wasn’t even recognized. There hadn’t been a single case at the Supreme Court to help define: What is an Indigenous person? What are ancestral rights? None of that existed at the time.

Ariane Simard Côté: Right.

Paul John Murdoch: Even people were surprised that, in 1971, there were no laws to protect the environment.

Ariane Simard Côté: Exactly.

Paul John Murdoch: At that time, when you wanted to develop something, a minister gave you a permit, and then you just showed up with tractors. So it wasn’t only a challenge for the Cree. I think that, in North America, it was the beginning of: Who is going to speak for the land? Who is going to speak for the animals? Who is going to speak for the people living in the land? And the Cree Nation was facing mega-projects. And our very existence wasn’t even recognized. A story, if I may. I worked with Grand Chief Ted Moses when I started at the Grand Council in ’98, and listening to Grand Chief Ted Moses and Billy Diamond, who was my uncle, tell stories from that time… When they wanted to meet someone from the Quebec government, Ted Moses had to take a floatplane from Eastmain to Fort Rupert, which is now Waskaganish. From there, they went to Moosonee, Ontario, to catch the train from Moosonee to Timmins, then the plane from Timmins to Toronto, and then the plane from Toronto to Quebec City. That’s how you got to negotiate with the Quebec government, even though you were supposedly in the same province. Just that image, I imagine, at that time, how people felt so far from the government, and how they felt… I won’t say ridiculous, but that someone so far away would make decisions about something so important on your territory, without being on your territory, without talking to you, without even knowing where you lived. That was the context of ’71.

Ariane Simard Côté: Wow. It was a very long and arduous battle. In what ways did the Quebec government actually resist the efforts of the Cree and the Inuit?

Paul John Murdoch: I feel, and I’m trying to be as diplomatic as possible, that it wasn’t so much resistance as it was ignorance and denial. It was my grandfather, along with my uncle, who went to see Premier Bourassa after he announced the “project of the century.” And they went with a great deal of respect. They made that long journey I just described, to say, “Hey, we’re here. You need to take us into consideration.” It was a very formal meeting. In our culture, it’s often the most important person, the Elder, who speaks last to give the final word. And when they met the Premier, I imagine he hadn’t even been briefed, but briefed by what? There were no laws, none of that existed. So what position could he even have received? And when it came time for my grandfather to speak, the Premier said, “Look, I’m late for my next meeting. Anyway, you only have privileges, and I don’t have time for you.” The personal insult. And it was at that moment that my grandfather turned to my uncle and said, “Okay, we’ve done everything we could. Now it’s up to you to use what you’ve been taught at school, to use the government’s own laws against itself. Because he doesn’t want to listen.”

Ariane Simard Côté: Oof.

Paul John Murdoch: So that was the starting point.

Ariane Simard Côté: Wow! What a privilege it is to have you so close to this history. In fact, as part of this story, we also spoke with lawyer James O’Reilly, who told us that before the agreement was finally signed, there had been more than 200 negotiating sessions and over 300 people took part. In other words, the Cree and the Inuit persevered for years, and in the end, they succeeded. So, how exactly did they manage to achieve that?

Paul John Murdoch: It’s funny, Master O’Reilly is so modest, and yet not modest at the same time. But if you say a lawyer is modest, everyone will say, “No, impossible.” And there’s a modesty about Master O’Reilly because I think that when you live through something, there are certain things you just take for granted. I once had the privilege of interviewing him at a conference, and we had an exchange where I was so glad that young lawyers were hearing what he was saying, even though he himself didn’t realize the importance of what he was saying. Because Master O’Reilly was a young lawyer working at Stikeman Elliott in ’71, at a time when there were only two lawyers in all of Quebec representing Indigenous people.

Ariane Simard Côté: Hmm.

Paul John Murdoch: Two.

Ariane Simard Côté: Two!

Paul John Murdoch: Yes. He was one of them. He knew Indigenous people. So, my uncle got his name. A young lawyer at Stikeman, super intelligent. And Stikeman got a mandate to represent a division of Hydro-Québec. So, he was told, “You have to make a choice. Either you stay here at Stikeman and you can’t work with the Cree, or you want to work with the Cree but then you have to leave Stikeman.”

Ariane Simard Côté: Wow!

Paul John Murdoch: He said, “I left Stikeman, and I went to work for the Cree.” And then he explained everything we just mentioned, the meetings, all of it. And I said, “No, no, no, wait. You were a young lawyer, you had kids, you had a young wife. And then you decide to leave a big firm to work in a field of law that doesn’t even exist. There are no Indigenous rights. There’s no Section 35 of the Constitution. You’re completely stepping into a void.” And he told me, he said, “I talked with my wife. And we couldn’t let the boys down.” And I asked, “What do you mean by that?” And he said, “Your uncle Billy, Albert, Teddy, they were so young.” He said, “No, we couldn’t leave them alone, so…” But just imagine the professional sacrifice of jumping into the void because you feel a moral obligation! And that’s what drives you to go through 300 negotiation sessions, and then public consultations where you have to take a floatplane, a train, a plane, all of that. And the reason you succeed, the reason you’re able to do things like that, is because when you’re in a community, in a public meeting, people feel it. They feel how serious it is, how important it is. And then you end up with meetings that start at nine in the morning and go until five in the morning, because everyone has to speak, everyone has to be heard. It’s possible because you’re talking about life, a way of life, a language, the existence of a people. That’s where you find the energy. I don’t think there was Red Bull in ’71. But that’s what it takes.

Ariane Simard Côté: A tea, a coffee. But really, from what I understand, it’s that sense of belonging, it’s the bond, the strength of that bond and relationship, the desire to keep it alive. And that feeling, with your peers, of fighting for your peers, for a community, for a territory. It’s that sense of belonging that gives you that energy, that fire?

Paul John Murdoch: Absolutely.

Ariane Simard Côté: This is truly fascinating. In fact, the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement is considered the first modern treaty in Canada. In itself, what makes it so monumental?

Paul John Murdoch: It’s a moment in history. A long history between the Government of Canada, or the people of Canada, and Indigenous peoples. I think it was important because it marked the end of 200 years of exclusion and isolation. There were the numbered treaties that we called Treaty One, Treaty Two… all those treaties, but they were negotiated back in the 1800s. And there was really segregation, an isolation, between non-Indigenous and Indigenous peoples. The James Bay Agreement, its signing in ’75… People often underestimate which part of the agreement captures the attention of Indigenous communities. From the Indigenous side, it was a treaty. It was even more: an agreement of repercussions, an agreement of relationship. It was the establishment of a relationship. It was not seen as a transaction. Our concepts of property, of debt, of risk, of credit, are very different, and it’s difficult to communicate a transaction without a relationship in an Indigenous context. So, for the Cree Nation, and this is how I grew up, listening to my Grand Chief, my uncle, my leaders, it was a relationship. The challenge is that the other side thinks it’s a transaction, that it’s a settlement, a quittance. That something is finalized so they can move on and we don’t need to talk anymore because they have many things they want to do. That is a recipe for a difficult relationship in the years that follow. So I think the James Bay Agreement is an important point in our history. But we must not forget that it’s a point, it’s one event in our relationship. And it took — 2002 — it took 27 years for someone in the ministry, in the government, to wake up and say, “Yeah, maybe we missed the mark.” And there was a part of the relationship that was missing. And that’s why the agreement that followed, which, in my view, gives life to the James Bay Agreement, is the Agreement Concerning a New Relationship between the Government of Quebec and the Cree of Quebec.

Ariane Simard Côté: Well, I was wondering, Grand Chief Murdoch, you were born in 1971, just four years before the agreement was signed. You worked for years as a lawyer, and today you are the Grand Chief of the Cree Nation. In your view, how did the agreement transform the lives of the Cree of Eeyou Istchee?

Paul John Murdoch: Hmm. What does it mean to me? And it’s funny, I had meetings this week where we were talking about extremely difficult issues: so many social problems, substance use, violence. But in spite of all that, there’s still hope. Yesterday, I was in a meeting with all the chiefs of all my communities, and we were talking about our social problems. You’d think that after a meeting like that, we would have come out pretty depressed, going over all the social issues we face. But instead, we came out inspired, because we were talking about the tools we have at our disposal, and how we were going to work to tackle those problems. That’s very different for an Indigenous community without a treaty, governed by the Indian Act, with very few tools, very little power, always having to ask permission from the minister, or from a deputy minister, or an official at Indigenous Services Canada. We’re in a very different situation. And another thing we must never forget: we must never forget where we are in history. In 1763, Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples in Canada were separated. Indigenous peoples were isolated. That was the beginning of being taken out of the Canadian economy. Nothing happened for 100 years. You start to see the problem. 100 years of isolation. Imagine the devastation, the lack of economic and political development. So then the Indian Act was adopted, because here was a population that legally had no right to participate in the Canadian economy. The Indian Act was created to manage their situation. Another hundred years, almost. And then we arrive at the James Bay Agreements. So we’re talking about roughly 250 years of economic isolation. And in ’75, the decision was made: “Okay, go! You’re equal now. We’re giving you the tools, you can develop, you can speak like the rest of us.” But when a race has been going on for 250 years, and someone is told to start running 250 years behind, that’s an inhuman thing to ask. I was born in ’71. The James Bay Agreement was signed in ’75. The Cree-Naskapi Act, which replaced the Indian Act, was adopted in 1984. That means we signed our treaty, and it was only nine years later that a law was passed to implement some of the provisions of that treaty. So from ’71, when I was born, to ’95, nothing had changed. A typical community, under the Indian Act… we had all the powers, and no resources.

Ariane Simard Côté: That’s right.

Paul John Murdoch: The question of resources was only settled in 2002. So it’s like saying to someone, “You have the power to do whatever you want, but we’re giving you no financial resources to do it.” The evolution is slow. But it’s funny, I was talking with a Chief yesterday, and he said we must not forget that the James Bay Agreement represents a moment, the beginning of a violent evolution in our communities.

Ariane Simard Côté: Okay.

Paul John Murdoch 29:50 – And I don’t mean “violent evolution” in a pejorative way. I’m not condemning evolution. But evolution, for any community, is extremely difficult. Look at the evolution of social media and how the United States and Canada are handling it. Now imagine that, multiplied by 1 000. So the evolution of our communities is extremely difficult. That’s just in recent days. But I’m very, very inspired to look back from that time, to where we are today, and to start from there… In ’75, I was four years old, all my cousins, and I had many cousins, were living in tents. Nobody was living in a house. And then you look at where we are today. There are difficult moments, but it is violent to ask a community to evolve at that speed. But as I said, at the end of the day, I’m full of hope with the powers we now have to determine our own destiny.

Ariane Simard Côté: It’s beautiful. It’s beautiful to hear your hope shining through all these efforts that are, in fact, bearing fruit.

Paul John Murdoch: Yes.

Ariane Simard Côté: And now, to take a step back from James Bay and adopt a more national perspective, in your view, what impact has the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement had on other Indigenous communities, both in Quebec and across Canada?

Paul John Murdoch: Negotiating an agreement, any agreement, is a major decision for the party signing it. And for Indigenous peoples, this was a first. I studied in the West. Today, I have colleagues who are Indigenous lawyers, and it’s always a challenge, because what happens in one place will have an impact somewhere else. I had the great honour of sitting down many times with Robert Kanatewat. He was the Chief who raised the alarm and brought all the other Chiefs together. He was the one who signed for his community of Chisasibi. And he was something of a hero to the young leaders like Billy Diamond, Philip Awashish. We’re so fortunate to still have him to turn to. And I asked him recently, “Can you tell me not about the James Bay Agreement itself, because everyone tends to focus on the signing, but rather about what was happening before, and what was happening after,” just to try to better understand the context.

Paul John Murdoch: And he told me that the other nations were furious when the Cree Nation signed the James Bay Agreement, because there were things in the agreement, precedents, that they really weren’t happy about. And I think they were worried about the precedent it would set for them.

Ariane Simard Côté: Of course.

Paul John Murdoch: From the outside, I can understand the concern. But from the inside, the James Bay Agreement, for us, was not a static document. It’s a relationship, it evolves. There’s wording in it that allows it to evolve, to be reinterpreted over time. Just this morning, I had a meeting to talk about the potential 30th Amendment to the James Bay Agreement. I think other communities really weren’t happy when they saw what had been signed. But they saw it as a transaction with the government of the day, while they didn’t understand that for us it was always about a relationship. Yes, it’s not perfect. Yes, there are things in it that don’t work. But like in any relationship, we will work together until we find a solution. At the national level, I think it was positive, it showed that a treaty of that scale, between one population and another, was possible. Personally, I think it helped those who rejected their own agreements to say, “No, no, we want something else.” Because in my work, one of the worst things I’ve experienced, I once negotiated an agreement, and in my opinion, and it was later confirmed somewhat, it was an agreement everyone said, “Wow, this is a very good agreement.” But then someone else took it, changed the names, and thought it would be just as good for them. But it doesn’t work that way. It’s the work you put in that leads to the agreement, that gives the agreement its value afterward. Just copy-pasting and changing the names, especially when you’re talking about a relationship, that will never work. The fact that people were inspired by the possibility of the agreement, but not by the agreement itself, I think that served them. Because if they tried to just copy and paste, it would never work.

Ariane Simard Côté: Because it’s about the relationship.

Paul John Murdoch: Yes, it’s the relationship. For thirty years afterward, they gave us a hard time, reminding our partners, making them hear that this is a relationship agreement, not a transaction.

Ariane Simard Côté: Right, exactly. It’s been quite difficult to keep reminding, to say, “We need to keep the dialogue going, it has to be evolving. We’re going to keep trusting each other and having these exchanges, where we learn to know one another through it, and eventually we’ll reach an agreement that works for both sides…”

Paul John Murdoch: Imagine the challenge, and the courage, in the face of failure in the ’80s and ’90s. We signed an agreement that promised change, and absolutely nothing happened in our communities. But on the other hand, all the roads, all the reservoirs, all the dams were built.

Ariane Simard Côté: Ouch!

Paul John Murdoch: And then you try to convince your people? No. It’s worth continuing, worth trying.

Ariane Simard Côté: This has been fascinating, listening to you. We’re already at the end of the podcast, and I could have listened for much longer. But what a privilege to be close to someone who has followed this agreement so closely, and watched it evolve. It’s encouraging, despite everything that’s been said, to hear that hope running through it, and to know that the dialogue is still alive. And in fact, the community, and Indigenous communities, will benefit greatly, in the long term, from this agreement and this treaty.

Paul John Murdoch: Thank you very much for the opportunity to share.

Ariane Simard Côté: Thank you so much, Grand Chief Paul John Murdoch, to discuss these important issues that remain so relevant today.

Paul John Murdoch: [Speaking Cree]

Ariane Simard Côté: Thank you for listening to Canadian Time Machine. This podcast is funded by the Government of Canada and created by The Walrus Lab. Transcripts are available in English and French. To access them, visit The Walrus at thewalrus.ca/CanadianHeritage. This episode was produced by Jules Ownby, who also did the sound design. Amanda Cupido is the executive producer.