Province stiffed us for millions - Madawaska
First Nation near Edmundston filed lawsuit earlier this month, alleging lottery corporation violated Court of Appeal decision by shorting payment by deducting HST in calculations
The Madawaska First Nation is taking the province back to court, arguing the government violated a court order to hand over its casino profits by deducting taxes from those payments.
The Indigenous community near Edmundston sued the provincial government and the New Brunswick Lotteries and Gaming Corp. in 2020, winning that case in a 2022 decision that was upheld on appeal in 2023.
Madawaska successfully argued the corporation was illegally withholding profits from video gaming terminals at its Grey Rock Casino. The government’s position was that the relevant legislation required it to pay out profits from “electronic gaming equipment,” but not for Grey Rock’s machines, which were termed as “video-gaming devices.”
Justice Terrence Morrison ruled in 2022 those were interchangeable terms and ordered the lotteries corporation to fork over the cash.