Good morning.
I would first of all like to express my appreciation for being asked to participate in this committee hearing. This is certainly a topic that we welcome, as it has important implications for the way in which Canada broadly deals with situations where there is an intersection of resource development proposals and indigenous traditional lands.
As you may know, the territory of Eeyou Istchee in the James Bay region of northern Quebec comprises approximately 400,000 square kilometres. This territory has, over the years, been the object of many resource development projects in the sectors of energy, mining and forestry.
Indeed, it was the announcement of the James Bay hydroelectric project in the 1970s that created the circumstances for negotiating the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement, which was signed in 1975. This agreement is our treaty. Over the past 45 years, we have built upon our treaty to gradually expand the role and the jurisdiction of our communities within our traditional territory, while at the same time improving the living conditions of our people.
The Province of Quebec has historically positioned itself to become an investment-friendly province for the mining industry. By and large, the mining industry has found Quebec to have a favourable regulatory and financial landscape. This has been inviting to many mining companies for exploring and developing mines.
Currently, as in many places throughout Canada and elsewhere, there is a significant drive to identify, explore and develop mines to bring to market those metals and minerals that will play a significant role in the production of batteries with very substantial capacity for storage of electricity. Vanadium, which exists in a number of places within our traditional territory, is one such metal.
Within our traditional territory, there are also several very active operations engaged in exploration and development for lithium, which is an element that has widespread use in current battery technology. Because much of the world's deposit of lithium is concentrated in less politically stable countries, there has been particular interest in identifying and exploiting the lithium deposits found in Quebec. There are currently five lithium projects at various stages of review and environmental assessment in our region. There has been significant talk about the potential for our region to actually become the battery of the north.
We are witnessing and we are becoming the focal point of the convergence of a shift to cleaner energy, the greening of industry operations, the growing environmental consciousness of consumers, the search for strategic minerals and the recognition that indigenous peoples may indeed have a serious contribution to make to our collective understanding and thinking about sustainable development.
The Cree Nation of Eeyou Istchee has spent many decades struggling with both the province and the federal government to secure acknowledgements of our indigenous rights and our treaty rights. It is now open to serious engagement with resource development proponents wishing to carry out activities on our traditional territory.
We have secured the recognition by Quebec that all resource development projects proposed to take place on our traditional territory must go through the social and environmental impact assessment process outlined in our treaty. It is a process that must take into account our people's environmental and social concerns. It would result in our involvement in such proposed projects, including environmental monitoring, employment, training, contracting and financial benefits.
We are at a point now where we have built and maintained a relationship with Quebec in the spirit of co-operation and with the objective of creating opportunities for our people and bringing home the benefits. The latest example of this can be found in La Grande Alliance of February 2020. It is an MOU that we signed with Premier Legault that creates a network of Cree and government organizations working together on the design and implementation of protected areas, transportation, communications and energy infrastructure to achieve the balance promised under the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement.
We have much work ahead of us, but this new approach can shift the paradigm that has for too long imposed challenges in balancing development and protecting our traditional territory, which remains essential to the livelihood of our Cree Nation.
As the La Grande Alliance MOU demonstrates, we are open to engaging with the mining industry, an engagement in the context of our treaty and the environmental and social impact assessment regimes embedded in our treaty. It is through this regime that we assess the social acceptability of the projects. It is through this regime that we give expression to the notion of free, prior and informed consent.