COLUMN: Carillon Flashback September 30, 2004 – Smokers welcome to light up at Roseau River’s new casino

A new gaming centre at Roseau River First Nation will offer shelter to beleaguered smokers, when it opens in January of 2005.

The gaming centre will offer Manitoba gamblers a smoking option, band chief Terrance Nelson said during a sod-turning ceremony earlier this month.

With the province-wide smoking ban going into effect Oct. 1, the centre will be one of the few public places where smoking will still be allowed. First Nations are exempt from the provincial smoking ban because they fall under federal jurisdiction.

“We will give Manitobans an option. When they refuse to let you smoke in Manitoba, come to Roseau River, one of the closest First Nations to Winnipeg. You don’t have to go to the United States to have this taste of freedom. Smoke to your heart’s content in a clean, up-to-date, modern, facility.”

People who complain about the health risks of second hand smoke to workers are hypocrites, Nelson commented. The community has 87 mould-infected houses, Chief Nelson said. Children living in the houses have 15 times the risk of developing asthma as the rest of the population. “We don’t have the money to move people out of those houses.”

Funds for the $1 million centre are being supplied entirely by the band, he said, noting revenues would be raised through the lease of land for the next 10 years to the gaming centre project.

Start of the project is actually “bittersweet” as it still falls well short of the $10 million casino which would have been preferred, the chief pointed out.

Natives in the United States, where treaty rights have been respected, are gaining “tremendous revenues” from gaming, Chief Nelson said.

Studies show native gaming in the United States has created 500,000 jobs, with 75 percent of those jobs going to non-natives, he pointed out.

The opening of the centre will coincide with the anniversary of an RCMP raid on a Roseau River casino in 1993, Nelson noted.

It was September of 1999 before the end of a lengthy legal battle which had ensued after Nelson was charged with running an illegal gaming operation in 1993.

Manitoba Appeal Court Justice Charles Huband dismissed Nelson’s appeal of conviction of 1993 gaming charges. The appeal court ruled that provincial judge Linda Giesbrecht had not erred in finding Nelson guilty for his role in operation of the illegal gaming devices seized at five Manitoba First Nations in January of 1993.

Nelson had claimed that gambling was an integral part of traditional aboriginal games and as such was not subject to criminal charges. Nelson, at the time, said as an aboriginal he had the inherent right to bring his own video lottery terminals to reserves in Manitoba.

The raid in 1993 came in the wake of an announcement by Nelson that there was no choice but to proceed with plans to open a casino to combat the high employment rate.

Judge Giesbrecht said in her ruling that an Ojibway tradition that includes gambling games does not mean aboriginal people can own and operate their own lottery terminals.

Acting as a gaming consultant to the Southern Association of Chiefs, Nelson continued to argue a historic treaty gives native people the right to use reserve land as they see fit.

“We ask permission from no one,” Nelson commented on the current project, expected to be open early next year.

Revenues will be used in a good way, he promised, pointing out that 10 percent will be set aside for a legal fund “so we can fight for treaty rights.”

The centre will include a 250-seat bingo hall, a VLT lounge, restaurant and tobacco shop.

The centre plans to offer a free luxury bus shuttle running daily between Winnipeg and the Roseau River First Nation, located just east of Letellier on Provincial Road 201.

– with files from Tim Plett