The LGA approach is involving communities from the start and considers environmental and social criteria at the same level as technical and financial ones. The feasibility studies put local communities at the center of the development process. This way of working, initially proposed by the Cree Nation, strives to shift the dominant paradigm away from natural resources as levers of regional development, towards community development. Natural resource development remains an element of this equation but is no longer the sole driver.

In this sense, La Grande Alliance goes beyond a standard regional plan but rather proposes a new model for how the Cree, Québec and Jamesian populations can work together on sustainably developing natural resources and the region for the betterment of all.