The Madawaska Maliseet First Nation has won and the New Brunswick Lotteries and Gaming Corporation has lost a court decision over revenue-sharing of gaming profits.
The New Brunswick Court of Appeal court ruling January 12 came over video gaming profits. The provincial government has been ordered to pay the tribal government 95 percent of the profits of video gaming machines at the Grey Rock Casino.
That amount in 2015 was $1.8 million.
The Lottery had argued that it was not legally required to share the profits and that how much it shared was at its discretion.
The court disagreed. The ruling, written by Justice Raymond French, declared, “The Gaming Commission does not have the residual discretion it claims, and Madawaska ought to be paid its share of the net profit for the video gaming devices at the casino.”
The commission had also asserted that the term “video gaming devices” in legislation referred exclusively to Atlantic Lottery Corp. slots that were originally used at the Grey Rock Casino until 2017— rather than the machines now operating there. The judges rejected that claim.
The appeals court ruling upheld a lower court ruling from 2022 that had found that the tribe qualified for the revenue sharing provisions of the law. The agreement is set to expire this year, so the victory by the Maliseet is only for previous revenue sharing.
Meanwhile, New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs has withdrawn from negotiations with the province’s First Nations over tax revenue sharing. The premier has gotten criticism for her “confrontational, my-way-or-the-highway approach” in dealing with the First Nations.
An attorney for the Maliseet, Nick Kennedy, who argued the case, told CBC News, “We said, and courts at both levels accepted, that that meant New Brunswick was required to share its gaming profits from the Grey Rock Casino with Madawaska.” He added, “So in our view it was very straightforward.”
