Peguis First Nation and a real estate business it created paid a company controlled by a Winnipeg developer at least $4.4 million over two years for consulting services, CBC News has learned.
The leaders of the cash-strapped Cree and Ojibway nation, which struggles with perennial flooding and the financial aftermath of high-interest loans, are now questioning the payments, which were approved under a previous chief and council.
Between April 5, 2021, and March 10, 2023, Peguis First Nation paid $3.8 million to a numbered company controlled by developer Andrew Marquess, according to a list of payments provided to CBC News by the band’s chief and council.
Between Aug. 17, 2021 and March 29, 2022, the Peguis First Nation Real Estate Trust, a limited partnership with the stated goal of creating housing and engaging in off-reserve development, recorded at least $600,000 worth of payments to the same Marquess-controlled company, according to financial records obtained by CBC News.
The payments to his consulting firm constitute “a significant amount of money” for Peguis First Nation, Chief Stan Bird said in an interview early this year.
Bird, who ran for office in 2023 on a promise to make Peguis governance more transparent, said the First Nation’s finances are constrained by a $172-million lawsuit over outstanding loans, as well as the need to conduct hundreds of millions of dollars worth of flood recovery and mitigation work.
“Every major decision we’re making, we take it to the community, where we’re going to be accountable for the decisions that we make,” Bird said.
“From this point forward, we have to be vigilant. We have to move slowly, cautiously. We have to do things right.”
Stan Bird, who has served as chief of Peguis First Nation since 2023, said he stopped payments to the consultant after the election. (Bartley Kives/CBC)
Its reserve sits along the Fisher River in Manitoba’s Interlake region, where the cumulative damage from floods in 2014, 2017 and 2022 has left Peguis with more than 500 homes in need of repair or replacement, Bird and his council said in April, when Peguis launched a $1-billion flood damages lawsuit against Canada, Manitoba and two rural municipalities.
As of that month, 785 Peguis members were unable to return to the community due to a housing shortage, Bird said.
The lawsuit against Peguis over loans was launched in December 2022 by PwC, a court-appointed receiver for defunct lender Bridging Finance.
Bridging provided $99.5 million worth of loans to Peguis at a rate of prime plus 11 per cent in 2017. The average lending rate for a five-year mortgage in Canada was 3.8 per cent that year, according to Statistics Canada.
The interest charges on the Bridging loans now total $72.6 million, according to PwC, which is trying to recover $172 million in principal and interest.
Marquess’s consulting firm was asked by Peguis to help with both flood recovery and the Bridging Finance lawsuit when former chief Glenn Hudson led the First Nation.
The band also asked Marquess for advice about land and business development, according to a Marquess-authored report obtained by CBC News.
Marquess’s company was paid a monthly average of nearly $158,000 for its work for the chief and council over 24 months, according to the provided list of payments totalling $3.8 million. The payments ranged in size from $20,526 to $345,000.
Peguis needed consultant’s support: former chief
Hudson, Peguis’s chief during the period when the payments to Marquess were made, initially declined CBC’s request for comment, citing “a confidentiality agreement signed between parties at the band level.”
In a subsequent Facebook message to CBC, Hudson said all Peguis council members, including two still serving, approved the payments.
“I have no comments as work was completed and finance looked after the payments,” Hudson wrote in the message. “The CFO [chief financial officer] and finance are ones who process payments for works completed.”
In an interview in July, Hudson said Marquess “has done great, good work for Peguis” at the same price other consultants charge.
Glenn Hudson served as chief of Peguis First Nation from 2007 to 2015, as well as from 2017 until 2023. He said Marquess provided the band with much-needed support. (Bartley Kives/CBC)
“You need the professionals, you need consultants to gather the information, put together the reports,” Hudson said.
“It costs money to do that. The government of Manitoba does it, [the] government of Canada and the City of Winnipeg. We’re no different. As First Nations, you need that type of support.”
Bird, who defeated Hudson in an election in April 2023, said the payments from Peguis to Marquess were stopped “as soon as I got into office.” Bird said in an interview in January he did not believe the money was well spent.
Gregory Stevenson, a trustee for the Peguis real estate trust, said in an emailed statement in May that Marquess did valuable work for the trust but said he “really can’t divulge any information” about payments made to any of the trust’s vendors or consultants.
“As for working with Andrew Marquess, we have a solid relationship and the value he brings to our projects have proven successful,” Stevenson said.
In a telephone interview in March, Marquess declined to discuss his work for Peguis, which he said was conducted on the basis of a contract approved by the former chief and council.
“I’m not discussing this in the media,” he said, deferring to Chief Bird. “If he wants to discuss it in the media, that’s up to him.”
Four days later, a lawyer who works for Marquess wrote a letter to Peguis’s chief and council, accusing the elected officials of providing confidential information to CBC and stating they are required to reveal the identity of CBC sources.
“Our client will seek to hold Peguis First Nation — and each of you personally — legally responsible for any damages that our client suffers as a result of the disclosure and/or publication of confidential information,” Marquess lawyer Kevin Toyne wrote in the letter, provided to CBC by Peguis lawyer John Gailus.
Gailus said in a response that Peguis doesn’t agree a list of payments constitutes confidential information.
“You may not be aware that Peguis First Nation is a public body that is responsible on an annual basis for producing audited financial statements which are required to be shared with their band members and with the government of Canada (and other funders),” Gailus told Toyne in an email.
Gailus also said Peguis is not aware of the identity of CBC sources.
In a separate email to CBC in May, Toyne said Marquess could not discuss payments from Peguis and its real estate trust because that information is the subject of confidential obligations that continue to apply to the consultant.
“Our client is therefore unable to participate in an interview at this time,” Toyne said.
“He awaits the disclosure of the identity of the person(s) that have breached those confidential obligations when your story is published.”
Provided flood recovery advice and more: consultant
According to the report Marquess provided Peguis’s chief and council in May 2023, he and his company performed a wide range of duties for Peguis and its real estate trust.
“It has been a very positive relationship dealing with Peguis over the past three years. Many challenges were presented but throughout each of these instances my team and I always tried to put Peguis in the best possible position for success,” Marquess wrote in that report.
“These roles were full time and our involvement with Peguis was virtually daily since the summer of 2020.”
Marquess said in the report he was first approached to design and develop a financing plan for a seniors’ centre for Peguis and provide a report about a Peguis cannabis investment on Warman Road in Winnipeg.
Marquess said in his report he was then asked to help Peguis contend with the financial fallout of the First Nation’s association with Bridging Finance Inc.
He helped Peguis engage in negotiations with receiver PwC, helped seek legal opinions and helped advise Peguis to service its Bridging-related debt if PwC accepted a settlement, Marquess said in his report.
PwC did not confirm any writedown of Peguis’s debt, Winnipeg accounting firm Baker Tilly stated in its documentation of the First Nation’s 2022 financial statements.
Marquess said his work then expanded to other files, including efforts to help Peguis recover from repeated floods along the Fisher River.
Floods along the Fisher River pose a perennial problem for Peguis. (Jaison Empson/CBC)
Marquess said in his report he developed a plan to rebuild Peguis, handled 2022 flood-reimbursement claims and communicated with Indigenous Services Canada. He also said he proposed plans for housing, land drainage and flood mitigation.
“Our team created a three-bedroom and four-bedroom design for Peguis that had an enhanced elevation for each house so they didn’t look like ‘boxes’ without curb appeal,” Marquess wrote.
He also said in his report Peguis could launch a flood-damages lawsuit against the federal government, which the First Nation launched this year.
“Canada has known for years that Peguis is on a floodplain and has not provided monies to attempt to meaningfully floodproof the community,” Marquess wrote in his report.
Marquess also said in his report he conducted consulting work for Peguis on files that included a joint venture with the Manitoba Jockey Club at Assiniboia Downs and the redevelopment of downtown Winnipeg’s Portage Place mall. This took place more than a year before True North Real Estate Development took on the project.
Marquess also said in his report he consulted with Peguis on a potential transfer of the Aseneskak casino licence from Opaskwayak Cree Nation, near The Pas, to Assiniboia Downs in Winnipeg.
Marquess said he revised an arrangement with The ReSolve Group, a Winnipeg company led by developer Joe Bova and property manager Gisele MacDonald, to develop a business plan for the licence transfer. ReSolve would have been paid $300,000 for the plan, plus $2 million if the licence transfer was successful, Marquess wrote.
“I know the principals at ReSolve. ReSolve does have the ability to assist Peguis with their request to the province in transferring the licence. ReSolve also has experience in managing construction projects,” Marquess added, noting ReSolve wished to manage an ensuing casino project.
Marquess advised Peguis First Nation Real Estate Trust on the purchase and sale of this plot of desirable riverfront property on Wellington Crescent in Winnipeg. (Jaison Empson/CBC)
The provincial government has not approved any casino transfers, according to a statement from Manitoba Justice Minister Matt Wiebe, whose portfolio includes the responsibility for the Manitoba Liquor, Gaming and Cannabis Authority.
Peguis, however, has joined a consortium of First Nations that own Aseneskak Casino, according to the casino’s website. The original members of the consortium were Cree nations located in northern Manitoba.
Marquess also said in his report he consulted on a series of projects for Peguis First Nation Real Estate Trust, which oversaw Peguis’s purchase and sale of surplus provincial land along Wellington Crescent in Winnipeg.
The trust is also involved in efforts to transform the former Meadows golf course in East St. Paul into residential housing and build a daycare on the site, according to the report.
Marquess continues to provide advice to the trust, trustee Stevenson said in an interview in January, adding Marquess’s contract with the trust was separate from Marquess’s work for the band’s chief and council.
‘Internal politics’: Marquess
In an interview in March, Marquess declined to address Bird’s concerns about the payments to his consulting firm. Marquess said he said he briefed the new chief and council about the projects he was working on for the band.
“I’m not going to comment on any of the work I did. Peguis can give you all that information if they so choose,” Marquess said.
“They certainly have all their own records. They have copies of everything,” he said. “If they have a problem with that, they should be able to communicate what the problem is.”
Bird said he has not talked to Marquess in person but has listened to Marquess pitch “his ideas around the Peguis First Nation Real Estate Trust, and the work that he’s done for the community and the work that he can do for the community.”
In a statement delivered to CBC by Toyne, Marquess said he had a positive working relationship with Peguis First Nation’s former chief and council.
Marquess said his company provided Chief Bird and his council with “a complete summary of all work and projects to allow for a smooth transition from one government to another” and questioned Bird’s motivation for commenting.
“It is unfortunate that internal politics is being brought forward by Chief Stan Bird related to other projects and previous contract work by 674 [6748831 Manitoba Inc., Marquess’s company] given the recent public statements on these projects and on the activities of the former government and leadership group.”
Former chief Hudson has asked the Federal Court of Canada to set aside his 2023 election loss to Bird, partly on the basis advance votes were nullified and cancelled. A special sitting of the court was held in Winnipeg on July 11 to hear arguments in a judicial review of the Peguis election.
The Federal Court has not yet issued a decision in the case. Marquess noted Hudson’s legal challenge in a letter he sent to CBC News through Toyne.
Toyne also said in a statement in May that Peguis lawyer Gailus has not raised any concerns about those services.
Gailus said it’s true he did not raise concerns.
“To date, we’ve been responding to his salvo — threatening PFN [Peguis First Nation] with litigation for disclosing confidential information,” Gailus said.
Peguis right to question payments: lawyer
For comparison’s sake, CBC analyzed spending on sole-sourced consultants by the City of Winnipeg.
The city has an annual budget nearly 11 times larger than Peguis’s, with Winnipeg’s expenses for all public services in 2024 totalling $1.36 billion.
The most Winnipeg spent on a sole-sourced consulting firm over a recent two-year period, according to the latest available city records, was $1.9 million. That was paid to Deloitte, one of the world’s largest consulting firms, for a trio of contracts with the city over 2021 and 2022.
Those contracts involved legal advice related to the city’s police headquarters lawsuit, procurement model advice and cost estimates for some of the upgrades at a sewage treatment plant, and a report about improving City of Winnipeg staff recruitment.
Toyne, the lawyer for Marquess, said this comparison is misleading because “an entire team” was working under his client’s direction.
Marquess would not say how many people his company employed to help deliver consulting services to Peguis.
Toyne said he would provide CBC with further documentation to show the work his client has done. To date, CBC has not received the documentation.
Yvan Guy Larocque, a lawyer with expertise in Indigenous governance and economic development, said Peguis is right to question payments, given its financial history. (Jeff Stapleton/CBC)
Yvan Guy Larocque, a Métis lawyer in Winnipeg who specializes in Indigenous economic development and governance, said he believes Peguis First Nation and its legal counsel are “asking the right questions” about the payments made to Marquess’s consulting firm.
“It is absolutely necessary that the current council and Chief Bird and their legal counsel are asking questions about previous payments made to consultants, especially given the amount of issues the nation has faced,” Larocque said in an interview in June.
“I think it’s not only their prerogative, it’s their duty to ask these questions.”
SAO PAULO (AP) — “King” doesn’t disclose his real name. Even clients of his Sao Paulo newsstand have to call him by his moniker. The Brazilian online sports gambling addict lowered his profile after a loan shark threatened to put bullets in his head if he didn’t pay up.
Broke and embarrassed, King sought treatment and support earlier this year.
“I was once addicted to slot machines, but then sports betting was so easy that I changed. I got carried away all the time,” he told The Associated Press.
King’s story is that of many vulnerable Brazilians in recent years. The country has become the third-biggest market in the world for sports betting, following the U.S. and the U.K., a report by data analysis company Comscore said last year. But unlike those countries, rampant advertising and sponsorship have been coupled with an unregulated market. The government is now — belatedly, some say — striving to get a handle on the epidemic.
On a recent evening, King’s Gamblers Anonymous meeting took place in an improvised classroom inside a church, with coffee and cookies to keep everyone awake, and supportive messages scrawled onto the blackboard. One that’s become ubiquitous in Brazil and beyond: “Only for today I will avoid the first bet.”
King and other attendees, all Christian, started a prayer and the meeting began.
King said his financial problems arose from his addiction to online sports betting, chiefly on soccer.
“I miss the adrenaline rush when I don’t bet,” he said before the gathering. “I have managed to stop for a couple of months, but I know that if I do it once again, even a small bet, it will all come back.”
Driven by the pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic was a key driver for Brazilians embracing sports betting. King said he transformed almost every sale during that time into a bet. His hook was the non-stop advertising on TV, radio, social media as well as sponsorship of local soccer teams’ jerseys. He asked for bank loans to pay his gambling debts and then, to cover those, went to the moneylender. His total debt now amounts to 85,000 reais ($15,000) — impossible to pay off with his monthly income of 8,000 reais.
Digging oneself out of debt in Brazil is especially daunting with its sky-high interest rates. Loans from Brazilian banks could add interest of almost 8% per month to the borrowed sum, and from loan sharks could be even more.
Four Gamblers Anonymous meetings attended by the AP in October featured discussions about difficulties paying down debts, forcing working-class members to postpone housing payments and cancel family vacations.
Some members of impoverished Brazilian families have used welfare money for betting instead of paying for groceries and housing, official data suggests. In August, beneficiaries of Brazil’s flagship program Bolsa Familia spent 3 billion reais ($530 million) on sports betting, according to a report from the central bank. That was more than 20% of the program’s total outlay in the month.
A host of gambling related problems
Sports betting was made legal in 2018 in a bill signed by former President Michel Temer. The subsequent turmoil has recently been setting off alarm bells, with addicts venting on social media and media reports of people losing huge sums.
On Oct. 1, the economy ministry prevented more than 2,000 betting companies from operating in Brazil for having failed to provide all the required documents. Soccer-loving President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said in an interview on Oct. 17 that he will shut down the entire market in Brazil if his administration’s new regulations — presented at the end of July— fail to work. And Brazil’s Senate on Oct. 25 opened an investigation into betting companies, focusing on crime and addiction.
“There’s tax evasion, money laundering of organized crime, the use of influencers to trick people into betting. These companies need to be audited,” Sen. Soraya Thronicke, who proposed the inquiry, told journalists in Brasilia.
Sérgio Peixoto, a ride-sharing app driver in Rio, is one of many lower-middle-income Brazilians who have reduced their spending due to sports betting debt. Peixoto’s debt currently amounts to 25,000 reais ($4,400). His monthly income is four times less than that.
“It stopped being a game, it wasn’t fun. I just wanted to get the money back, so I lost even more,” said Peixoto, 26. “I could have invested that money. It would surely have given me more benefits.
Pressure to bet
Pressure on people to gamble is everywhere. Current and former soccer players, including Vinicius Júnior, Ronaldo Nazário and Roberto Rivellino, are among the poster boys for local and foreign brands. All but one of the top-tier soccer clubs have betting companies among their main sponsors, with their name and logo emblazoned on their kits. There have been cases of kids and teenagers setting up accounts using their parents’ personal information and money, multiple local media outlets have reported.
Brazil’s economy ministry estimates that Brazil’s sports betting market had $21 billion in transactions last year, a 71% increase compared with the first year of the pandemic, 2020.
The ministry’s newly presented regulations include facial recognition systems for gamblers to bet, the identification of a single bank account for transactions involving sports betting, new protections against hackers and the government-authorized domain, bet.br, which will host all betting sites that are legal in Brazil. Once they are in place, come January, between 100 and 150 betting companies will continue to operate in the South American nation.
The changes in Brazil have prompted some companies to take preemptive action. A report by Yield Sec, a technical intelligence platform for online marketplaces, said several betting companies voluntarily restricted their operations in different places after the latest editions of the European Championships and Copa America in the hopes of presenting “the best possible license application face to the Brazilian authorities.”
Magnho José Santos de Sousa, the president of the Legal Gambling Institute, a betting think tank, said Brazil is currently “invaded by illegal websites that have licenses in Malta, Curação, Gibraltar and the United Kingdom.”
De Sousa expressed hope that the new regulations for advertising, responsible gambling and qualification of sports betting companies will transform the country’s deregulated arena into a more serious one that doesn’t exploit the vulnerable.
“The whole operation could turn from water into wine,” he said.
Gamblers Anonymous in high demand
Meantime, the demand for Gamblers Anonymous meetings in Sao Paulo has grown so much in recent years that the weekly gathering, in place since the 1990s, was no longer enough. Many groups have added a second day in the week to help new people recover, mostly sports bettors.
Earlier in October, a group on Sao Paulo’s northern edge admitted a man who was struggling with sports betting and card games. The 13 other people in the room stressed that he wasn’t alone.
“Welcome,” one long-time attendee said, in a greeting that has become a regular for the group. “Today, you are the most important person here.”
SAINT CATHARINES, Ont. – Saskatchewan’s Jason Ackerman remained undefeated on Wednesday with a 7-4 win over Newfoundland and Labrador’s Trent Skanes at the Canadian mixed curling championship.
After going down 3-1 through four ends, Ackerman (6-0) outscored Skanes (3-3) 6-1 the rest of the way, including three points in the seventh end.
Alberta’s Kurt Alan Balderston also earned a win, defeating New Brunswick’s Charlie Sullivan 9-2 in another matchup in the final draw.
The win improved Balderston’s record to 4-2 and sits in third in Pool B.
The top four teams from each pool will play four more games against the survivors from the other pool. The remaining three teams from the pool will play three more seeding games to help set the rankings for next year’s event.
The championship final is scheduled for Saturday.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 6, 2024.
EDMONTON – Noah Hanifin had a pair of goals as the Vegas Golden Knights won their first road game of the season, coming from behind to shock the Edmonton Oilers 4-2 on Wednesday.
Jack Eichel had a goal and two assists and Mark Stone also scored for the Golden Knights (9-3-1), who have won two in a row and six of their last seven. The Knights entered the game 0-3-1 on the road this year.
Brett Kulak and Zach Hyman replied for the Oilers (6-7-1), who have lost two straight despite getting captain Connor McDavid back from injury earlier than expected for the game.
Adin Hill made 27 saves for Vegas, while Stuart Skinner managed 31 stops for Edmonton.
Takeaways
Golden Knights: With an assist on the Knights’ second goal, William Karlsson has recorded at least a point in all five games he has played this season (two goals, four assists).
Oilers: McDavid was a surprise starter for the Oilers, coming back just nine days after suffering an ankle injury in Columbus and initially being expected to miss two to three weeks. The star forward came into the contest with 11 points (three goals, eight assists) during a six-game point streak versus the Golden Knights, but was held pointless on the night.
Key moment
With just 48.4 seconds left to play, the Golden Knights won a race to the corner and Ivan Barbashev was able to send it out to a hard-charging Hanifin, who sent a shot glove-side that beat Skinner for his second goal of the third period and third of the season.
Key stat
It was Hyman’s third goal in the last four games after the veteran forward went scoreless in his first 10 games this season following a 54-goal campaign last year. Hyman now has five goals in his last six games against Vegas.
Up next
Golden Knights: Head to Seattle to face the Kraken on Friday.
Oilers: Travel to Vancouver on a quick one-game trip to clash with the Canucks on Saturday.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 6, 2024.
