Billy Diamond

It was 1970, in Waskaganish, on the shore of James Bay.

A twenty-one-year-old man had just been elected chief. He was the youngest chief in Canada at the time. His name was Billy Diamond.

A month later, eight Cree elders came to see him. Surveyors had told them that their lake was going to be flooded.

In 1971, Quebec's premier, Robert Bourassa, announced a hydroelectric project worth about six billion dollars. No one had consulted the Cree or the Inuit.

Billy Diamond was born on May 17, 1949, in a tent, near what was then called Rupert House. His parents were Hilda and Malcolm.

As a child, he hunted and trapped with his family along the Nottaway River.

At about seven, he was sent to residential school, in Moose Factory, Ontario. His hair was cut. He was forced to speak English. He was punished if he spoke Cree.

Later, he would say the experience had harmed his foundation years, his identity, his sense of belonging.

In high school, in Sault Ste. Marie, he helped create an Indian students' council. He edited its newspaper.

Then he went home. He helped his father, Malcolm, who was chief. He became band manager.

He organized a meeting of the Cree of James Bay. He rallied the trappers. Together, they decided to go to court.

A first ruling went in favour of the Cree and the Inuit. It was overturned.

In the end, the Cree reached a settlement with Hydro-Québec, out of court.

In 1974, the Cree founded the Grand Council of the Crees of Quebec. Billy Diamond became its first grand chief.

On November 11, 1975, he signed the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement. The project would be altered. In exchange, the Cree obtained rights to their lands and compensation.

It was Canada's first modern treaty.

That same year, he chaired the Cree Regional Authority and the new Cree School Board.

He carried the cause of the Cree and the Inuit all the way to the United Nations.

From 1980 to 1983, Canada negotiated its Constitution. Billy Diamond negotiated with Pierre Trudeau and Jean Chrétien. He fought for sections 25 and 35, which protect the rights of Indigenous peoples.

Thanks in part to him, rights arising from land claims agreements were recognized as treaty rights.

Patrick Madahbee said of him that he was the quickest man to counter any argument.

In 1982, he founded an airline, Air Creebec. It is entirely Cree-owned. He also launched a construction company, and boats built in Waskaganish.

In 1984, he stepped down as grand chief. For him, the age of confrontation was over. Now it was time to build a nation.

Later, he became chief of Waskaganish, his home community, once again.

On September 30, 2010, he died of a heart attack, in his community of Waskaganish. He was sixty-one. His wife, Elizabeth, was at his side.

He had asked that these words be carved on his grave:

In 2020, Quebec's National Assembly voted for the James Bay Highway to bear his name: the Route Billy-Diamond.

His struggle, carried out with the elders and trappers of the Cree of Eeyou Istchee, echoes Ubuntu without merging with it: you do not defend your lake for yourself alone, but for everyone who lives from it.

A long road crosses the North, toward James Bay.

Quebec voted for it to bear the name of a man who went to a meeting, and promised to come back.