TORONTO – An Ontario First Nations group has won a seven-year legal battle to appoint a First Nations representative to the Ontario Lottery and Gaming board of directors and are demanding the appointment be made immediately.
An arbitrator ruled last month that the provincial government breached its contractual obligations and acted in bad faith by refusing to appoint a member of the Ontario First Nations Limited Partnership to the OLG board.
The OFNLP (2008) and the province established a revenue sharing agreement in February, 2008 that gave up a lawsuit claim of about $3 billion in exchange for 1.7 per cent share of gross revenues from various lotteries and gaming revenues, in addition to the right to have a First Nations representative appointed by the province to the OLG board.
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In the seven years since that agreement was made, the partnership argued the province has refused to allow a candidate to be appointed to the OLG board, while rejecting numerous applicants on the basis that they did not meet provincial requirements.
“I’m not too clear on that, I don’t understand why,” said Randy Sault, General Manager of the OFNLP (2008). “It’s quite offensive behaviour that raises public policy questions about the ability of the government to break signed contracts. I just don’t know what the thinking was for not allowing that to happen, for us to have a board member.”
The OFNLP (2008) claimed in court that the decision to postpone the appointment was done as a calculate bad faith manoeuvre to exclude First Nations from taking part in a modernization plan for OLG in July 2010, and that candidates were unfairly excluded from consideration without adequate explanation.
Finance Minister Charles Sousa said in a recent interview that the government will respect the court decision.
“We also want to respect the First Nations and the Aboriginal community,” he said. “We want an individual representing First Nations that is authorized by all concerned. We will proceed.”
“There have been issues with respect to, and I can’t be specific in terms of who the candidates have been, but listen, they have to go through certain requirements as do all members who go on to a board and they have to provide clearance.”
Court documents allege that it wasn’t until January, 2011 that the OFNLP (2008) became aware that there was an issue with the nominees it had put forth and that they had been rejected after years of delays.
The province also rejected a January, 2011 request that they provide a written explanation of the issues with the First Nations candidates that disqualified them from the board position and a written commitment to appoint an OFNLP (2008) representative to the OLG board by March 15, 2011.
“Aboriginals have an important part to play in these things because it’s our resources and land,” Sault said.
“We’ve issued a demand letter to the province to immediately appoint a representative on the board, so we’ll see how far that goes. That probably won’t go any farther, we’ll probably end up litigating again.”
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