Interview with Billy Diamond and Roy MacGregor By Sharon A. McLennan-McCue Ottawa, Quebec Volume 17 Number 4 1989 The depth and richness of Billy Diamonds voice carries to every corner of a room. Unequal to its strength and conviction, other voices stumble, then lapse into silence. He is a master at the art of being heard; the pleasure for the listener is that he has something to say. It's difficult not to be overwhelmed by this man who, at the age of only twenty-two, took on Robert Bourassa and the Quebec government with their "project of the century." His story is unique in Canadian native history and the outcome of his fight, native self-government, is unequalled in North America. That we have had to wait so long to hear the story of the James Bay Cree is unfortunate. That Roy MacGregor thought it was time and that he wrote it is our good fortune. In his easy-going, self-deprecating style, MacGregor jokes about how he dominates these joint interviews he and Billy have been giving. If he is anything, Roy MacGregor is certainly smart enough to know that you don't get in the way of a good story, particularly when you've brought that story along with you to the interview. That story is Billy Diamond and he speaks most eloquently for himself. In his easy-going, self-deprecating style, MacGregor jokes about how he dominates these joint interviews he and Billy have been giving. If he is anything, Roy MacGregor is certainly smart enough to know that you don't get in the way of a good story, particularly when you've brought that story along with you to the interview. That story is Billy Diamond and he speaks most eloquently for himself. Out goose hunting, the Cree heard about the project on the radio, or read about it in week-old newspapers. What did the project mean? They weren't sure, but several were concerned enough to know that they should at least be asking some questions. Billy Diamond was and his first question was "Who should we talk to about this?" The answer lay within the Cree communities. They would talk to each other. The Cree were loosely based in eight communities on the Quebec side of James Bay. In 1971 they were so isolated that they were unable to have meetings among themselves, much less with anyone outside their communities except for the detached bureaucrats who paid annual obligatory trips to each village. Billy Diamond, chief of Waskaganish (then Rupert House), had never met the chiefs from the other villages. His only network outside his village was made up of young Cree from the other James Bay communities with whom he had attended residential and secondary school in Ontario. They were bright young men like himself and when they finally learned of the giant hydroelectric project that would destroy their traditional hunting and trapping lands they knew that they had to do something. However, their isolation left them unable to gather and to discuss possible solutions. With a travel grant from the Arctic Institute of North America, the Cree chiefs came together in a school room in Mistassini, one of the eight villages. As MacGregor points out, "Never before had there been a Cree meeting. Never before had there been a need for a full Cree council." At the end of the meeting, the chiefs drafted a resolution stating that they were opposed to the project and sent it to Jean Chretien, then minister of Indian Affairs. He never received it. Robert Bourassa's government passed a bill creating a Crown corporation, which would have absolute authority over the construction of the enormous hydroelectric project, two weeks after the meeting in Mistassini ended. But Bourassa still hadn't said anything to the Cree. During the four years that followed, Bourassa learned never to disregard the Cree or Billy Diamond again. At the expense of their health and family lives, the Cree leaders fought and cajoled, negotiated and threatened, and when it was all over, on November 11, 1975, they signed their names to a landmark--The James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement. It was over. Oh, how Billy Diamond wished that was true. The fight leading up to the agreement was only an altercation. It would take another nine years (long after the huge LG2 dam had been officially opened) for the federal Parliament to pass the enabling legislation that would give the Cree the money and control that the James Bay Agreement had promised in principle. While the southern politicians were arguing about who should pay for what and how much, the Cree were fighting against third-world-type sanitary conditions that were leaving their children ill and dying. Philip Diamond, Billy's son, who was stricken by gastroenteritis, lay near death in a coma. Doctors had given up hope. Eight years later, supported by his father's overwhelming desire for his survival, Philip has done more than survive. Roy MacGregor becomes as passionate as Billy when he talks about Philip. Forcefully, he declares: "He should be dead--wasn't supposed to walk, wasn't supposed to talk, wasn't supposed to be able to think, and every time I look at him, that, to me is the book.... I think of it as a love story." When asked what he would do differently, Billy Diamond says that he would make the James Bay Agreement more specific. He would not leave so much up to good faith, to trust. Yet, ironically, Chief: The Fearless Vision of Billy Diamond was produced without any written agreement between the two men. Trust is integral to the success of Chief. There were incidents Roy MacGregor wanted in the book, incidents that were painful and private for Billy Diamond. For example, Billy was jailed, briefly, for assault. He has also become a born-again Christian. Billy objected to such public revelations, but, with his family's encouragement, he changed his mind and responded to MacGregor's plea, "Trust me as a journalist." Roy MacGregor has not betrayed that trust. He uses it to show the extremes to which the Cree have gone for recognition. Billy and the Cree visited the Pope requesting his assistance in lobbying the federal government in their cause. The Cree entered into a partnership to build boats with a Japanese firm because no Canadian company would deal with Indians. With Billy Diamond as president, the Cree now own and operate their own airline. Literally and figuratively, they're flying. MacGregor says, "In literary terms, I feel that Philip is a metaphor for the Cree. No one ever expected the Cree to walk, no one ever expected the Cree to talk, no one thought the Cree could think and no one thought they'd survive." In this powerful book the Cree do more than survive. Thanks to Billy Diamond and Roy MacGregor, they reflect their indomitable spirit and, in the face of incalculable odds, provide a measure of strength to people involved in countless other struggles. Chief:The Fearless vision of Billy Diamond.. Toronto, Penguin Books Canada, 1989.