The following passages are taken from Maintaining the Pillars of Our Identity, a report on the Cree Nation Gathering prepared by D. Romeo Saganash for the Grand Council/CRA. The report was just released.
“A careful ear will note to what extent there is virtually no difference in outlook between the Youth and Elders when it comes to Eeyou/Eenou Astchee. In fact, the importance of the land and the Eeyou/Eenou control of Eeyou/Eenou Astchee remain remarkably constant whoever speaks.
But there seems to be a predicament. Aside from the fact that each group is addressing the concerns of their generation in their unique way—sometimes with nostalgia, at times with fear and other times militantly—a basic conclusion remains, and it is that of the need to debate the reform of our institutions in order that our People completely identify themselves with them. The youth, women, the Elders must not feel excluded from the Nation-building process, but rather we must make every Eeyou/ Eenou a full participant in the continued social, cultural, economic and political development of the Nation.
There is a need to redefine and understand what it means to be an Eeyou/Eenou today. And consequently a need to be dear, from that basis, on “where do we go from here?” To achieve the above, maybe a major organizational restructuring is required, but the fact that our people chose to elect another forum to begin this process is singularly significant. It tends to remind us all that the present existing institutions are not necessarily viewed as the appropriate forums where the driving force can be drawn from to achieve the desired change.
And indeed, the experience at Old Nemaska has proven the members of the General Assembly and the leadership ultimately right in their decision to recognize the need and to hold the Cree Nation Gathering in such an admirable setting…”
“It was around 2 a.m. on October 12, 1492 that a crew member on one of Columbus’ ships, La Pinta, by the name of Juan Rodriguez Bermejo, shouted: ‘Tierra, Tierra.” From that day on, the world was never going to be the same. It was perhaps difficult to imagine or measure at first how this encounter would change the lives of the people inhabiting the territories on which Columbus landed; most certainly, the encounter of the so-called “Two Worlds” was a painful awakening for the Indigenous peoples.
The dispossession of the lands and fundamental rights of Indigenous Peoples that tragically followed—and continues to this day—is not, of course, the purpose of this report. But one can certainly argue that what commenced in the Mayan country of the Yucatan Peninsula definitely reached Eeyou/Eenou Astchee in April 1971.
‘The world begins today’ were the exact words the narrator used in the audiovisual presentation Robert Bourassa made to the 5,000 delegates present at the Quebec Colisee that day. The ‘Project of the Century’ was thus launched without any thought being given to the Indigenous People using and inhabiting the territories to be flooded by the proposed mega hydro-electric developments. And although the rights of the Eeyou/Eenou were dearly protected by law, Robert Bourassa and his Government had decided to take a different approach, totally ignoring the existence of our People, our distinct way of life, our rights and the constitutional obligations of governments towards us…”
