The Cree believed that their control over their own territory was being eroded. Given the success of the Cree in derailing the province's Great Whale hydroelectric plans, Scott thinks Quebec would be foolish to underestimate the region's natives. He also believes the government has been blind to the advantages of making the system work. The aboriginal communities, who had close contact with the resources on a daily basis, were actually more accurate in predicting what was going to happen. When you bring the different types of expertise together, it usually works to everyone's advantage.
People often think that self government is about a totally separate native administration.
Not so, says law professor Jeremy Webber, who worked on the co-management study with Scott. Self-government isn't about aboriginal people going off and doing things totally on their own. Complete autonomy is rarely an option and even when it is, we have to be careful about how it's defined. One of those students, Susan Drummond, did her master's thesis on Inuit justice systems. Aboriginal women can be very vulnerable, for instance.