Clear Lake advocacy group ends court action

Fairness for Clear Lake is withdrawing its judicial review against Parks Canada following a court delay that pushed the 2025 boat ban hearing to May.

The advocacy group made the announcement on Thursday, citing several reasons for the decision.

The turning point came when members learned a judge would likely decline to hear the case due to its late timing, Trevor Boquist, spokesperson for the advocacy group, told the Sun on Friday.

A delay in the court system pushed the group’s hearing from Jan. 28 to May 21, significantly altering the landscape of the judicial review.

“By the time we would be actually getting in front of a judge, the judge would probably not even hear the case because a boating decision for 2026 will have been made by then,” Boquist said.

“We discussed it with our lawyer … He didn’t think that the courts would even hear the case once a decision had been made.”

Parks Canada posted a notice on its website in December saying that it expected to make a decision about 2026 boating on Clear Lake before the end of this month. The agency did not provide a comment before deadline on Friday.

Fairness for Clear Lake members met on Monday and decided that the best way forward was to withdraw, Boquist said. The judicial review would have been costly to continue and a significant improvement in leadership has taken place with the appointment of Riding Mountain National Park Supt. Tom Sheldon, he said.

“We wanted to make sure that we kept that relationship because of what he’s doing,” Boquist said. “We think all that’s positive … and we’re really down to a final decision, around boating for 2026.”

Fairness for Clear Lake was formed last summer by community members and businesses in protest over Parks Canada’s last-minute decision to ban motorized vessels from the lake for the 2025 season.

The group launched a judicial review last June, hired a public relations firm and lobbied for a policy change.

Boquist said that while the judicial review never made it to a final hearing, the process of filing the court challenge accomplished many goals.

“We forced Parks Canada to deal with Clear Lake,” he said. “We highlighted a problem within Parks Canada: a lack of accountability, lack of transparency, lack of having qualified people in key positions that are affecting people’s lives.

“By getting all that out, putting all that pressure on, I mean, we ended up with a new superintendent, Tom Sheldon, who we believe is doing an exceptional job in the role.”

Boquist added that the group also hosted a town hall in July 2025 that attracted Parks Canada vice-president of operations Andrew Campbell, who addressed the crowd and explained decision making at that event.

Fairness for Clear Lake is now focused on advocacy and lobbying as much as possible to have its preferred “one boat, one lake” policy brought back for 2026, he said. The group is writing letters to Julie Dabrusin, the federal minister in charge of Parks Canada, as well as to Manitoba MPs and MLAs, and is engaging with Premier Wab Kinew in the weeks leading up to the expected boating announcement for 2026, Boquist said.

In 2024, Kinew came out saying that boats should be allowed to operate on the lake. The premier was not available for a comment Friday, but press spokesperson Ryan Stelter told the Sun that Kinew’s position has not changed.

Last week, Manitoba Business, Mining, Trade and Job Creation Minister Jamie Moses wrote a letter to Dabrusin detailing how businesses in the area have been significantly impacted by the boat ban and urging the federal government to provide financial assistance to the area.

Riding Mountain Conservative MP Dan Mazier could not be reached for comment on Friday.

» cmcdowell@brandonsun.com