News
The debate between Cree Indians and Hydro-Quebec came to Dartmouth in 1991, when a majority of students demanded that the Board of Trustees divest almost $8 million invested in the company.
Hydro-Quebec's opponents claimed the company's projects would cause flooded vegetation, mercury poisoning in fish, disruption of hunting and trapping traditions and social problems like alcoholism, family violence and suicide among the Cree community.
The project, one of the largest ever engineering projects in the world, was predicted to have an ecological impact on an area the size of France.
In the spring of 1991, members of the Environmental Studies Division of the Dartmouth Outing Club, the College Chapter of Amnesty International and Native Americans at Dartmouth formed a protest group they called Dartmouth Divest Hydro-Quebec.
They claimed that investing in the hydroelectric project was inconsistent with the College's traditions, history and values, and urged the Dartmouth community to demonstrate their support for the Cree by signing petitions.
Protestors collected over 2,300 signatures, and a unanimous Student Assembly resolution called on the College to sell its Hydro-Quebec bonds.
Student protesters met with the College's Council of Investor Responsibility and demanded they recommend divestment to the Trustees.
After considering testimonies of the native people of Quebec, the Dartmouth community, independent researchers and representatives of Quebec's provincial government and Canada's national government, the Council recommended divestment.
A Hydro-Quebec spokesman said it was the first such action ever directed against the company.
The value of the holdings had reached a high at $7.75 million, and it was divested at a value of $6.8 million.
In June 1997, seventeen months after the Quebec government decided against the second phase of the James Bay project, Hydro-Quebec made a new proposal to divert two of the largest rivers in northern Quebec.
