Melissa Ridgen
APTN Investigates
A gas bar/smoke shop intended to generate revenue on Manitoba’s Roseau River First Nation has become a battleground.
What do a former chief, his daughter and a non-Indigenous previous, third-party manager have in common?
Millions of dollars in provincial tobacco revenues that could be used to help the community.
Melissa Ridgen finds the flames in WHERE’S THERE’S SMOKE.
he has another one in Pine Creek First Nation Mb how many does he have set up
The story shows a mindset of Indian people. We have no issue with White people making money off our community in fact we seem to prefer it. Terry Nelson may have once been a voice for Indigenous issues but that is long over. He is noted for promoting non-Indigenous over Indigenous people. He is a strong advocate for giving business control over to non-indigenous. He makes the point that we should allow Whites to invest and that is true. But the agreements made btw him and Doer are one sided deals. Not in the best interest of the community. Saying Doer used his own money is not a valid reason. The Band easily could have leveraged their Trust Agreements for loans and used the Bands money. The interest to be paid would have been far less than given up all rights to the business venture. As the song says “well the rat always knows when he is in with weasels”.
We are very happy we have someone to voice the truth for our community of Roseau. Finally someone who investigates with passion. A lot of our tribal members would like to thank you Reporter Melissa Ridgen for taking on a story that many other media would not because of threats from a lawyer! APTN Team did a great job in exposing the truth! When the people see the video there reaction is “what! we didn’t even know this”. We tried to tell the community before but there is so much division, ears went plugged, people are just sick and tired of all the rumors but this is facts not rumors. But now there ear plugs are out thanks to APTN team!
It would be interesting to find out how many similar deals are in place in other reserves, where band councils have diverted income/profits/benifits away from those who legally should be rightful benifisuaries of these businesses. These businesses do not have to be on reserve but could have been set up with the benifits supposedly benifiting the reserve/people but never does get to them.