Court battle splits Metis leaders

Page 1

A bitter feud which surfaced during a Zone 4 Regional meeting in April, and which has been angrily waged between various factions during the past two months, has culminated in a lawsuit filed by the Regional Council against other members of the council and Zone 2 vice president, August Collins.

A statement of claim filed in Edmonton July 17 against eleven defendents claims almost $60,000 in a series of general, special, punitive and exemplorary damages. The defendants cited in the suit are: August Collins, Frank Spence, Dan Martel, Donald Sinclair, Ralph Blyan, Mike Woodward, Stan Plante, Russel Plante, Elaine Morin, Bruce Alan Gladue and Gordon Poitras.

In a 23-clause statement the Regional Council claims the defendants "conspired . . . to harm the plaintiff (Zone 4 Regional Council) and to remove from office two of the Plaintiff's officers, namely Ben Courtrille and Ronald LaRocque and to replace them with the defendant, Mike Woodward and the defendant, Russel Plante by whatever means expedient."

The claim adds that both Courtrille and LaRocque have "suffered damages as a result of expending time and money to undo the malicious actions and the harm caused by the defendants" but adds that any damage claim awarded on their behalf be handed to the Zone 4 Regional Council.

The lawsuit also includes a list of expenditures claimed to have incurred by the defendants and paid for by Zone 4. These include lawyers fees to Parlee McLaws, the lawyers for the defendants amounting to more than $3,000 and lawyers fees to Gledhill Reid, lawyers for the Regional Council for more than $5,000 as well as expenditures for a recent meeting held in Spruce Grove and alleged "unauthorized disbursements" of $750 to Mike Woodward including dry cleaning.

In an interview July 20, Zone 4 director LaRocque pointed out that these expenditures totalled more than $12,000.

"Make no mistake, this is funding," he said. "This is money that has been allocated to the people of Zone 4."

However, it now appears