Lodge owners call for action from province, RCMP after confrontation at First Nations checkpoint on public road

Natural Resources and Indigenous Futures Minister Ian Bushie said he’s meeting with Manitoba’s lodge owners’ association after one of its members was blocked at a controversial checkstop near Bloodvein River First Nation.

The Manitoba Lodge and Outfitters Association is calling on the RCMP and the province to intervene following the Feb. 12 incident on a provincial road where area First Nations set up a checkstop last year to stem the flow of alcohol and drugs into their communities and to prevent the over-harvesting of moose.

Shining Falls Lodge owner Tobias Becker said Monday that he was told by someone operating the checkstop on Rice River Road that, “You’re not getting through here unless we get your ID, you tell us where you’re going, you let us search your vehicle.”

In an interview Monday he said he explained that he and a passenger were going to his lodge properties via winter road to do maintenance and that he would not enter a First Nation.

“I was fairly certain at this point that what was happening there was a infringement on our constitutional rights — the Charter of Rights and Freedoms,” he said.

He said he called the RCMP and was told he’d have to wait for an officer to respond, so he and his passenger presented their identification and were allowed to pass. Becker said during the wait, a vehicle travelling in the opposite direction made a threatening gesture toward them.

He said he’s considering relocating his business.

“It’s very challenging,” he said.

The lodge owners and outfitters have written to Premier Wab Kinew, Bushie and the RCMP urging them to remove the checkstop near Bloodvein, about 280 kilometres north of Winnipeg, saying it is a public roadway surrounded by Crown land.

“We’re in full support of First Nations protecting their community,” association president Melanie MacCarthy said Monday in a news release. “We’re asking that it be removed from a provincial highway.”

The lodge owners want it relocated to the First Nation. The checkstop is creating division and “undoing much of the hard work that has been done to advance reconciliation,” she said.

“Our membership relies on ongoing, secure access to public land to conduct their business and ensure their livelihoods continue, all while contributing over $370 million in provincial tax revenues to the province through tourism,” she said, adding similar action could happen elsewhere if the government doesn’t act to resolve the situation.

In November, a Manitoba judge rejected a Manitoba Wildlife Federation request for an injunction against the checkstop, saying it thwarted licensed hunters’ legal access.

King’s Bench Justice Theodor Bock dismissed the application for the injunction because it didn’t follow proper procedure. The judge said that if the First Nation was prevented from operating the checkstop for illicit drugs and alcohol, it will lose an “apparently effective tool in its efforts to deal with this pressing problem.”

Bushie, acknowledging the lodge and outfitters’ economic impact, said Monday that he supports the intent of the checkstop but that messaging about its intent needs to be clear.

“We support the community in that way, but understand that sometimes it creates some confusion,” he said. “We are in conversations with the MLOA on a regular basis and meeting very shortly with them just to clarify some of these issues.”

Bushie said his department regularly meets with the leadership of Bloodvein and other area First Nations who benefit from the checkstop. The Southern Chiefs’ Organization, which has been the media contact regarding the checkstop, did not respond to a request for comment Monday.

The RCMP did not provide answers Monday to questions about whether it is investigating complaints about the checkstop and whether the people operating the barricade can lawfully prevent anyone from proceeding on the provincial road.

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca