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Title: | Expert Testimony in Superior Court, Québec, Case No. 05-04841-72, Chief Robert Kanatewat, et al. vs James Bay Development Corporation, et al. and The Attorney General of Canada, January 10, 1973 |
Other Titles: | FEIT_Testimony_Court_Transcript_Readable-Digest_Jan_10_1973-Kanatewat_vs_Quebec |
Authors: | Feit, Harvey A. |
Department: | Anthropology |
Keywords: | Aboriginal Rights;Law and Development;Legal Witness;Way of Life;Subsistence Economy;Employment and Hunting;Assimilation;Bush Education;Development Impacts;James Bay Cree |
Publication Date: | 1973 |
Citation: | Feit, Harvey A. 1973. Expert Testimony in Superior Court, Québec, Case No. 05-04841-72, Chief Robert Kanatewat, et al. vs The James Bay Development Corporation, et al. and The Attorney General of Canada, January 10, 1973. Pp 30. |
Abstract: | This testimony was given in the James Bay Cree’s court case for an interlocutory injection to stop the James Bay Hydro-electric Project construction while other court proceedings considered the recognition of their Aboriginal rights. As an interlocutory proceeding the focus was on damages that Cree would suffer in the short-term if the Project continued, and whether these effects could be remedied. This is “expert” witness testimony, even though Cree were clearly the experts. Court procedures constrained what witnesses could say. Cree and those without expert standing in the court were often challenged by lawyers when their statements went beyond what they knew at first hand from observation and experience. Expert witnesses could testify based on other kinds of statements and evidence, including about collective social patterns, what was said as common discourse, and what aggregated information, statistical records, and historical documents showed. They were mainly challenged based on Euro-Canadian research methodologies and the validity of their statements. My testimony, along with that of others, addressed some of the basic claims that governments and corporations were making about Cree to the media and in the courtroom. These included: Cree were now living like other Québecers; they no longer used the land or hunted any differently than sport hunters; they would not therefore suffer many impacts of development and the ones that occurred would be remediable; that the few Cree who remained on the land were mainly older; that youth were in schools and would not return to the land; and that therefore the Project would benefit the Cree people. My testimony presented evidence of the extent of Cree use of land, and how particular territories which were handed down across generations were vital to the lives of those families and the community. The extent and viability of the Cree subsistence economy was documented with community-wide and regionally aggregated statistical data, which was presented in response to anecdotal evidence and limited bureaucratic records cited in corporate and government statements. Statistical tabulations from my research done with Waswanipi Crees supported statements on how they had uniquely combined wage employment with subsistence hunting. The continuity and transmission of Cree ways of life to the next generation, many of whom had been to schools, was documented with quantitative records of youth participation in hunting. Testimony documented the ways in which resource developments were already disrupting Cree hunting and social lives. I also indicated that those Cree who had appeared in the court were representative of Cree society, and that they were not a selected and distorted sample, as corporate and government lawyers implied. |
Description: | Cree and Inuit hunters and their families were the witnesses who convinced the judge to rule that the Project should be stopped while other court cases proceeded (although this stoppage turned out to be brief). I saw my role as providing expert testimony that supplemented what Cree, as unacknowledged experts, were permitted and not permitted to say in court. That their presence and statements were central to the judge’s ruling was clear from his citations of witnesses and his use of some of their terms and concepts in his text. Alongside this, he also cited considerable evidence in support of his conclusions from testimonies of those who were allowed to speak as expert witnesses. |
URI: | http://hdl.handle.net/11375/23962 |
Appears in Collections: | Anthropology Publications |
Files in This Item:
File | Description | Size | Format | |
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FEIT_Testimony_Court Transcript_Jan_10_1973-Kanatewat_vs_Quebec.pdf | 1.36 MB | Adobe PDF | View/Open | |
FEIT_Testimony_Court_Transcript_Digest_Readable_Jan_10_1973-Kanatewat_vs_Quebec.pdf | 1.31 MB | Adobe PDF | View/Open |
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