A Review of the James Bay Cree Income Security Programs Under the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement.

Abstract

The mandate for this report was to critically review all aspects of the James Bay Income Security Program and the Cree Trappers Association Programs, including their objectives, structure, implementation, control and funding, with particular attention to short­comings and possible improvements. A variety of objectives were explicitly or implicitly sought by those involved in the negotiation and implementation of the Income Security (ISP) and Cree Trappers Association (CTA) Programs. Among the Cree objectives were: to enhance Cree hunting culture and activities, and help assure their future continuance; to provide the cash incomes required by hunters in order to pursue their present and future activities; to help insulate the hunting economy from changes in market conditions, including commercial fur prices and changes in the availability of jobs and government assistance payments; to enhance hunters' confidence in the future of hunting by creating more stable conditions; to provide cash resources in a form which left recipients free to dispose of incomes as they determined, and thereby to enhance their ability to modify and adapt their practices; to maintain a relative balance between the hunting and cash sectors of the Cree community economies; to reverse the negative social impacts of social aid and other transfer payments programs, and especially to reunite kin groups; to aid hunters to maintain hunting activities in the face of impacts of large-scale developments; to achieve the above in a form acceptable to governments, and particularly which would not add directly to the global cash sums publicly announced at the conclusion of the JBNQA negotiations.