Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs sues province over Sand Hills Casino’s financial failings

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Blaming the provincial government for the financial failings of the Sand Hills Casino, the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs has initiated legal action against the province.

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This article was published 19/10/2017 (2352 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Blaming the provincial government for the financial failings of the Sand Hills Casino, the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs has initiated legal action against the province.

They are seeking $868 million, plus revenue from Winnipeg’s Shark Club gaming centre, alongside a list of additional claims.

The AMC’s statement of claim was filed on Tuesday, and leading lawyer Kate Kempton said that Grand Chief Arlen Dumas had already reached out to Premier Brian Pallister in hopes of resolving things outside of court.

File
The Sand Hills Casino is pictured on its opening day in June 2014.
File The Sand Hills Casino is pictured on its opening day in June 2014.

A Manitoba Justice spokesperson declined comment on Thursday, other than to confirm that they’d received the statement of claim and would be reviewing it to determine their position.

Located south of Carberry on Swan Lake First Nation land, the Sand Hills Casino is in “financial trouble,” the statement of claim reads. “The bad faith actions of the defendants (the Government of Manitoba and Manitoba Liquor and Lotteries Corporation) have caused or contributed to these financial troubles and losses.”

As previously reported, Sand Hills Casino has posted deficits since opening in June 2014 and during its first two fiscal years had posted an accumulated loss of $4.53 million.

While the provincial government hasn’t been “taking tables or chairs or anything like that out of the casino,” they’ve contributed to the conditions that led to its financial failure, Kempton said, pointing to the statement of claim as outlining this accusation in depth.

Central to this argument is the casino’s location, off the beaten path.

As the statement of claim clarifies, the province “refused to consider in good faith the request of Sand Hills Casino to relocate to the Winnipeg region.”

This is where the Shark Club gaming centre comes into play, in that the statement of claims asserts that prior to its opening the province had told the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs that Winnipeg was not a viable location for a casino.

The statement of claim also notes that First Nations were guaranteed the province’s next five casinos and that only three have opened thus far.

In 2013, the province licensed 500 additional video lottery terminals for existing Winnipeg casinos, around which time the Shark Club also opened, which the statement of claim describes as fitting “the common understanding of a casino” despite being called a “gaming centre.”

Although the Sand Hills Casino is a “trigger for the litigation,” Kempton said it’s about much more than one financially troubled business.

“It’s about 20-plus year history of being promised a regime that would be economically viable and a game-changer for the First Nations collectively in the province,” she said. A system that devolved via breached promises that she said the AMC is trying to fix by bringing it front and centre through legal action.

The statement of claim centres more on Winnipeg than it does Brandon, citing the capital city as possibly “the only market in Manitoba where casinos can generate significant revenue.” However, Kempton pointed to the Wheat City as a more “viable area” than where the Sand Hills Casino ended up.

Efforts to locate a casino in Brandon were “nixed, and the province did not step up to prevent the nixing of it,” Kempton said.

“I’m not going to blame the provincial government,” former mayor Rick Borotsik said on Thursday, pointing the blame instead on the city’s elected officials of the day, who decided to put whether the casino would be approved to two plebiscites.

The first was held in 2002 and the second was held in 2008, with members of the public coming out both times in opposition to the idea of a First Nations casino being located in the city’s downtown core.

In 2008, Borotsik, who was then the Progressive Conservative MLA for Brandon West, was part of a committee that sought the affirmative vote, whose failure to convince the public remains a sore spot with him.

“Brandon was the obvious choice,” he said.

File
Then-Brandon West Progressive Conservative MLA Rick Borotsik and Brandon East NDP MLA Drew Caldwell show their disappointment as the idea of a First Nations casino in downtown Brandon is voted down in a 2008 plebiscite.
File Then-Brandon West Progressive Conservative MLA Rick Borotsik and Brandon East NDP MLA Drew Caldwell show their disappointment as the idea of a First Nations casino in downtown Brandon is voted down in a 2008 plebiscite.

While the plebiscites were a setback, they did not kill the idea of locating a First Nations casino near Brandon.

By 2012, then-mayor Shari Decter Hirst realigned the municipality’s sights on drawing a casino to the area, partnering with Tribal Councils Investment Group in a renewed effort to draw the effort back to Brandon.

Meanwhile, a trio of area First Nations had banded together to bring the region’s casino to a plot of land they’d purchased in the RM of Elton, between city limits and the municipal airport.

The consortium, made up of Waywayseecappo First Nation, Keeseekoowenin Ojibway First Nation and Rolling River First Nation, demanded a greater cut of the casino’s revenues than the AMC’s plan to divide proceeds evenly among all of Manitoba’s 64 First Nations.

Ultimately, the AMC decided to construct the Sand Hills Casino where it currently stands.

It remains a point of contention with Waywayseecappo First Nation Chief Murray Clearsky, who blames the AMC, the provincial government and the Indian Act with stifling his community’s economy.

“As long as we’re trying to move ahead the bureaucrats will hold us back because they’d be out of a job, simple as that,” he said, adding that if they had true self-government, without the Indian Act and other governmental authorities hanging over their heads, they’d be able to develop the tools they need to prosper.

Current mayor of Brandon Rick Chrest said that he feels as though the results of the two plebiscites gave the city “a bit of a black eye.”

The community didn’t know enough about what the casino plans were to make an informed vote, which he said contributed to people voting it down. “In the absence of details, you vote no.”

As it stands, the Sand Hills Casino has filled Westman’s casino quota, as defined by the provincial government, with its opening killing whatever aspirations there were for Brandon welcoming such a facility, under current legislation.

“Would it have done better in Brandon? Maybe, but maybe not,” Chrest said. “It wouldn’t necessarily still be a guarantee.”

The Government of Manitoba and Manitoba Liquor and Lotteries Corp. have yet to file a statement of defence and the material presented in the statement of claim has yet to be proven in court.

» tclarke@brandonsun.com

» Twitter: @TylerClarkeMB

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