Plenty of blame to go around for failing casino

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 20/10/2017 (2905 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

In what should come as no surprise to anyone who has been following the pitfalls of First Nation gaming development in this province, news broke this week that the Sand Hills Casino development south of Carberry is not only “failing” according to court documents obtained by The Sun, but that its owners recently demanded the casino be moved to Winnipeg.

This after barely three years in operation. Three money-losing years.

As The Sun reports today, this information comes out of a statement of claim filed in the Court of Queen’s Bench in Winnipeg on Tuesday as part of a nearly $1-billion lawsuit by the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs against the Government of Manitoba and the Manitoba Liquor and Lotteries Corp.

The AMC states that the province is in breach of the Jan. 28, 2011, gaming agreement respecting the Sand Hills Casino, and further claims that the government is guilty of either negligence or fraud by misrepresenting facts to the AMC during the negotiations of that agreement.

Back in 2013, when Greg Selinger’s NDP was still in power, AMC Grand Chief Derek Nepinak accused the province of being underhanded in allowing Truth North Sports and Entertainment — the owners of the NHL Winnipeg Jets — set up a 5,000-square-foot mini-casino in downtown Winnipeg after telling First Nations in 2007 that the city’s casino market was already saturated.

In its deal with True North, the province allowed the Jets owners to offer slot machines, poker and blackjack in a facility now called the Shark Club Gaming Centre, located in a shopping centre adjacent to the Jets’ arena, Bell MTS Place.

Just last year, current Manitoba Premier Brian Pallister turned down a request by the owners of the First Nations-run Aseneskak Casino in The Pas to move their failing casino operation to Winnipeg, which was their preferred location. The premier based his government’s decision on a Gaming Market Study that showed the casino market is already oversupplied throughout the province, including the capital city.

That the owners of the Sand Hills Casino made a similar request is a new piece of information — though again it’s not in the least bit surprising. And the same court documents suggest that this request, too, was turned down. We can only assume that this second refusal — in addition to the province’s apparent refusal to negotiate with the troubled casino facility to “arrange a reasonable and mutually agreeable payment plan” for daily financial payment obligations demanded by the Liquor and Gaming Authority of Manitoba — prompted the AMC to call upon its lawyers and sue.

In essence, the AMC says the province has blocked any potential casino construction within the lucrative Winnipeg city boundaries, “the only market in Manitoba where casinos can generate significant revenue.” This in spite of an adopted government policy to aid the construction of such casino facilities for the benefit of all 64 First Nations in the province.

They’re also saying that the province essentially should have forced the construction of an Aboriginal casino in Brandon, whether the citizens wanted one or not — and worked with the city to make it happen. Note here that Brandon held two controversial public plebiscites in 2002 and 2008, both of which showed citizens did not want a casino within city limits.

The 1997 Bostrom Report, which is cited by the court documents, recommended the creation of five Aboriginal casinos within Manitoba, as a means for generating revenue for Manitoba’s First Nation population.

“The Bostrom Report did not make the location of casinos conditional on approval by the local municipality in or near which the casino would be located,” reads the statement of claim.

We have said before on this page exactly what the AMC is asserting in its litigation — that True North’s “gaming facility” is a casino under the province’s original legal definition that was in play when that particular deal was made.

What the AMC fails to note in the gaming timeline provided to the court, is that the City of Brandon, under the leadership of former mayor Shari Decter Hirst — and in partnership with the Tribal Councils Investment Group — made overtures to the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs to reconsider their decision to build the Sand Hills casino on Swan Lake territory south of Carberry.

As Greg Selinger once told The Sun in an interview following that announcement, Brandon would have had to go through the AMC if it wanted to revisit the idea of a casino within city limits.

“There is a process we follow on deciding whether we support any casino and that’s through the joint gaming table at the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs and that’s the only way we make decisions on casinos,” Selinger said.

But after months of attempting to reason with the AMC leadership, Decter Hirst told The Sun that the deal was “dead,” and that the AMC decided to go ahead with a smaller casino development in Swan Lake.

“(The Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs) is going forward with the Carberry proposal and the province continues to support AMC’s decision, whatever AMC’s decision would be. And so, for all intents and purposes it’s done. Which I think is really unfortunate.”

In the Court of Queen’s Bench documents, the plaintiffs do a fine job of skating over the facts of how the Sand Hills Casino (then known as the Spirit Sands Casino) ended up on the Swan Lake First Nation reserve near Carberry in the first place.

In the wake of Brandon’s second plebiscite in 2008 — in which residents once again voted against the construction of a casino within city limits — the AMC and the Manitoba government announced that the province’s next casino would be built on the Wheat City’s doorstep in the RM of Elton, as part of a proposal put forward by three Westman First Nations.

The casino was to be built on 534 acres of farmland near the northwest corner of the junction of the Trans-Canada Highway and Highway 10 in the RM of Elton. The facility would be jointly owned by Manitoba’s 64 First Nations.

One year later, however, negotiations between the AMC and the consortium broke down over how to split the casino revenues, a situation that ultimately resulted in the gaming licence being taken away from the consortium.

Subsequently, the AMC decided to construct the Spirit Sands Casino on Swan Lake First Nation land south of Carberry along Highway 5.

As such, the possibility of a Brandon casino had appeared to be a bad bet until 2012, when then-mayor Shari Decter Hirst announced an “unprecedented partnership” between the City of Brandon and the Tribal Councils Investment Group, to examine the financial case for a casino development inside city limits.

We knew back then that the location near Carberry was not the ideal location for the AMC’s third casino development. The AMC had a chance to revisit the casino back in Brandon with a mayor and council that were ready to ignore the will of the people and do what elected officials are supposed to do — make decisions for the benefit of the city. And now, with a failing casino on their hands, the AMC is laying blame on the province.

However this ends up, it’s hard not to say “we told you so.”