The Grand Council of the Crees is the political body that represents the approximately (2003) 14,000 Crees or “Eeyouch” (“Eenouch” – Mistissini dialect), as they call themselves, of eastern James Bay and Southern Hudson Bay in Northern Quebec, Canada. The Grand Council has twenty members: a Grand Chief and Deputy-Grand Chief elected at large by the Eeyouch, the chiefs elected by each of the nine Cree communities, and one other representative from each community. The present grand chief is Dr. Ted Moses, and the deputy grand chief is Paul Gull. The Council’s head office is in the Cree community of Nemaska , although it also has offices in Montreal and Ottawa.
The Council was formed in 1974 during the negotiations between the Eeyouch and the Quebec and Canadian governments about their rights in the face of the James Bay I Hydroelectric Project, which had already been under construction since 1971. When the hydroelectric scheme was first announced the Eeyouch of Eeyou Istchee were governed by a traditional political structure. That political structure was organized to exploit the resources of Eeyou Istchee by their traditional hunting, fishing and trapping way of life. Cree lands were divided into family harvesting territories, each headed by a hunting leader or “Outchimau”, that were resource management units and a means of distributing the Cree people over a vast territory. The Grand Council was set up at a council of Cree leaders as a means to conduct relations with the outside world. Since the signing of the 1975 James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement the Grand Council has paired with the Cree Regional Authority, which serves as an administrative arm for providing services to the Cree communities and for environmental protection. Both organizations have the same board of directors.
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