page_title: History of Hydro-Québec
section_title: Great Whale Project
hierarchical_section_title: History of Hydro-Québec / The 1980s and 1990s / Great Whale Project
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Cris de Chisasibi, à la Baie James, au Québec English: Chisasibi Crees, at James Bay, Quebec
context_page_description: Hydro-Québec is a government-owned public utility established in 1944 by the Government of Quebec. The company is in charge of the generation, transmission and distribution of electricity across Quebec. Its head office is located in Montreal.
context_section_description: Hydro-Québec and the Bourassa government had a much harder time circumventing the next hurdle in northern Quebec. Robert Bourassa was re-elected in late 1985 after a 9-year hiatus. Shortly after taking office he announced yet another hydro development in the James Bay area. The C$12.6 billion Great Whale Project involved the construction of three new generating stations with a combined capacity of 3,160 megawatts. It was to produce 16.3 terawatt-hours of energy each year by the time it was completed in 1998–1999.
  The plan immediately proved controversial. As they had in 1973, the Cree people opposed the project and filed lawsuits against Hydro-Québec in Quebec and Canada to prevent its construction, and also took action in many US states to prevent sales of the electricity there.
  The Crees succeeded in getting the Canadian federal government to establish a parallel environmental assessment process in order to delay construction. Cree leaders also got support from US-based environmental groups and launched a public relation campaign in the US and in Europe, attacking the Great Whale Project, Hydro-Québec and Quebec in general. Launched in the months following the failure of the Meech Lake Accord and the Oka Crisis, the campaign prompted a coalition of Quebec-based environmental groups to dissociate themselves from the Cree campaign.
  However, the Cree campaign was successful in New York State, where the New York Power Authority cancelled a US$5 billion power contract signed with Hydro-Québec in 1990. Two months after the 1994 general election, the new Premier, Jacques Parizeau, announced the suspension of the Great Whale Project, declaring it unnecessary in order to meet Quebec's energy needs.
  The moratorium on new hydro projects in northern Quebec after the Great Whale cancellation forced the company's management to develop new sources of electricity to meet increasing demand. In September 2001, Hydro-Québec announced its intention to build a new combined cycle gas turbine plant—the Centrale du Suroît plant—in Beauharnois, southwest of Montreal, stressing the pressing need to secure additional electricity supply to mitigate against any shortfall in the water cycle of its reservoirs. Hydro's rationale also stressed the cost-effectiveness of the plant and the fact that it could be built within a two-year period.
  The announcement came at a bad time since attention was drawn to the ratification by Canada of the Kyoto Protocol. With estimated emissions levels of 2.25 Mt of carbon dioxide per year, the Suroît plant would have increased the provincial CO₂ emissions by nearly 3%. Faced with a public uproar — a poll conducted in January 2004 found that two of every three Quebecers were opposed to it—the Jean Charest government abandoned the project in November 2004.
caption: The Crees from Northern Quebec strongly opposed the Great Whale Project in the early 1990s.
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