SIGA tunes up

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It appears that things are finally turning around for the Saskatchewan Indian Gaming Authority (SIGA), after over a year of controversy and turmoil.

Two announcements about the gaming authority were made on July 25. The first, made by SIGA, announced that the authority's acting president and CEO Edmund Bellegarde had been given the position on a permanent basis. Bellegarde had been acting president since last summer.

The second announcement, from the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations (FSIN) and the Saskatchewan Liquor and Gaming Authority (SLGA) indicated SIGA had met the requirements set out by the province aimed at addressing problems within the organization.

The eight requirements, or benchmarks, set out improvements SIGA needed to make in the areas of financial management, governance and accountability. The benchmarks were put in place a year ago to address problems with mismanagement of funds by the former SIGA board and senior management.

The meeting of those benchmarks means that the FSIN and the provincial government can now begin negotiating new gaming agreements for First Nation's casinos. A moratorium on casino expansion, imposed by the province in June, 2000, has also been lifted.

Dave McIlmoyl is a member of the new SIGA board of directors, which has been in place since February.

"I guess when we first got in, our job one, at least in my mind, was to satisfy the benchmarks that Sask. Liquor and Gaming had put before us so that we could get the casino negotiations ongoing and carry on," McIlmoyl said. "Because without getting that done, Aboriginal gaming in the province could possibly have disappeared. So it was very important that we preserve the jobs in the four First Nations casinos and get everything running as well as it could possibly run.

"Our goal is to deliver money to the First Nations Fund for distribution to First Nations throughout the province. Because that's kind of what we see the goal as, to maximize the return to the First Nations within the framework that's laid down by Sask. Liquor and Gaming, who are our regulator. And then within that, we want to make SIGA a first class organization to work for, for the employees and for our patrons. We want it to be a first class gaming operation," McIlmoyl said.