Canada’s First Nations are demanding that the government give them a larger share of the nation’s gaming market and change the laws so that they can open more indigenous casinos.
Currently 16 First Nation casinos are in operation, but the Assembly of First Nations, which represents over 600 chiefs, wants the national government to amend the Criminal Code that prevents more from opening. The law prevents such casinos unless the province specifically authorizes them.
Perry Bellegarde, national chief of the Assembly of First Nations told CBS News, “It’s all about recognizing and respecting First Nations jurisdiction. We’re pushing. We have to make this one of the items on all party platforms: respecting First Nations jurisdiction. It’s about creating really good paying jobs for all people, not just First Nations peoples — and it’s another avenue to creating economic stability.”
However the government doesn’t seem inclined to do that. Justice Minister David Lametti issued a statement that the government isn’t considering such an action currently. His spokesman Celia Canon said, “With respect to Section 207 of the Criminal Code, our government is not considering a repeal at this time; however, our government will continue to engage with Indigenous partners on how to address their concerns and support economic opportunities.”
Since 1985 the federal government has left such decisions to the provinces; part of decentralization known as “devolution.” This is especially true of gaming. First Nations cannot operate casinos unless provinces issue them licenses. In many cases, provinces don’t do so because then First Nations be competing against province-owned local monopolies. They don’t want to lose tax money.
In Ontario, for example, the state-owned casinos contribute $1 billion to the treasury. There is one jointly run casino, between the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Commission and the Chippewas of Rama First Nation. It is Casino Rama.
A First Nation group in Manitoba has sued for the right to operate a casino in Winnipeg. Two commercial casinos operate there profitably, but the province restricts the First Nations to rural operations. The Manitoba chiefs are suing for nearly $1 billion.
Most of the First Nation Casinos are located in the northern provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan, and only operate because they pay a large share of their profits to the provincial government. This is an arrangement that one supporter of First Nation rights, Yale Belanger, calls “a usury fee in many ways. The provinces essentially said, ‘If you want casinos, you’re going to have to pay.’ It’s a fee for operations that’s stripping millions and millions from the communities that the gaming program was initially designed to help.”
Berlanger, a professor at University of Lethbridge, told CBC News, “At the end of the day there may be more negatives confronting First Nations who choose to open casinos — based on social and political tensions — than what they’ll realize economically by doing so.”
The Saskatchewan Indian Gaming Authority has made almost $1 billion in profits in the last decade. Half it paid to the province and half it distributed to individual indigenous communities.
