The James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement (French: Convention de la Baie-James et du Nord québécois) is an Aboriginal land claim settlement, approved in 1975 by the Cree and Inuit of northern Quebec, and later slightly modified in 1978 by the Northeastern Quebec Agreement (French: Accord du Nord-Est québécois), through which Quebec's Naskapi First Nation joined the agreement. The agreement covers economic development and property issues in northern Quebec, as well as establishing a number of cultural, social and governmental institutions for Indigenous people who are members of the communities involved in the agreement.
In the 1960s, Quebec began developing potential hydroelectric resources in the north, and in 1971 created the James Bay Development Corporation to pursue the development of mining, forestry and other potential resources starting with the James Bay Hydroelectric Project. This massive undertaking, which was directed by an increasingly assertive government of Quebec without consulting Indigenous people, was opposed by most of northern Quebec's Cree and Inuit. The Quebec Association of Indians – an ad hoc representative body of Indigenous northern Quebecers – sued the government and, on 15 November 1973, won an injunction in the Quebec Superior Court blocking hydroelectric development until the province had negotiated an agreement with the Indigenous nations.
