Stay of charges against White Bear chief means gambling negotiations can continue

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The Crown has stayed charges filed against the leader of a band in southwest Saskatchewan over his role in an on-reserve gambling dispute.

Charges against White Bear Chief Bernard Shepherd, which included keeping common gambling house, were stayed after Crown and defense lawyers agreed the trial was over the province's right to control on-reserve gambling and not Shepherd's breach of the Criminal Code.

"We're still going ahead but they've recognized that it's a jurisdictional agreement with the province," Shepherd said.

Shepherd, White Bear Band gaming commissioner Brian Standingready, casino manager Susan Alsteen and the band's American partner Alan King were all charged after RCMP raided the Bear Claw Casino last March 22.

The police, dressed in full camouflage and accompanied by a SWAT team and police dogs, crashed through the casino's front doors in a pre-dawn raid only weeks after the gaming house's grand opening.

All of the casino's equipment, including an unspecified number of video lottery terminals, 100 slot machines, and six black jack tables, were seized.

The trial, which got under way last September, has already been adjourned once before. Judge Wallis Goliath ordered a month-long adjournment in September to allow both the Crown and the defense time to prepare their cases.

The charges against Standingready and Alsteen were also dropped. The Crown subsequently filed an appeal against dropping the charges in October, but then abandoned it after Shepherd's charges were stayed.

The December stay will allow the chief to resume talks with the province over the right to on-reserve casino gambling.

"We have jurisdiction over our gaming on the reserve. We have developed our own gaming act and that was put together and implemented by a custom," Shepherd said.

In the meantime, charges are still pending against the Bear Claw Casino and White Bear Supply and Service, two band-owned companies, he said.

The band also launched a counter-suit against the province in Saskatchewan's Court of Queen's Bench, seeking the right to operate slot machines on their reserve. But that case was postponed after band council learned their lawyer had accidentally filed the statement in provincial, rather than federal court.

The federal government filed its own statement in October claiming the band's application for the slot machines was invalid. That hearing, which began last July, marked the first time Ottawa had directly involved itself in the dispute between the band the province of Saskatchewan.

As with the other case, the band maintains it has the right to pursue economic development to create jobs on the reserve 200 kilometres southeast of Regina.

The White Bear's legal troubles ar not limited to on-reserve gaming. The band may yet find itself in court over a lawsuit filed by the Saskatchewan Economic Development Corporation.

SEDCO filed the suit two weeks ago against the band, White Bear Lake Golf Court Estates and a numbered company owned by the band for defaulting on a $75,000 loan.

The corporation extended the loan to the numbered company in 1990 to help pay for the construction of the back nine holes on a golf course. But the company missed a payment last spring, corporation spokesperson Karen Pedersen said.

The White Bear and the White Bear Lake Golf Course Estate guaranteed the loan. They have until the end of the month to file a statement with the court.