$10M deal gives Winnipeg developer control of land from First Nation he advised
CBC
A former golf course north of Winnipeg purchased with money Peguis First Nation received as reparation for broken treaty promises is now mostly in the hands of a property developer who used to advise the band and its real estate trust.
The band's lawyer said the transfer of ownership is unfair, and an independent legal expert called it unusual — while the former chair of the Peguis First Nation Real Estate Trust said mounting financial pressure left the trust with no other choice but to undertake the transaction.
"This was the only solution we could have had," said Greg Stevenson, the trust’s former chair.
Andrew Marquess, the developer who now controls most of the land, meanwhile, said the deal allows the Peguis real estate trust to recoup its initial investment, retain the control of some of the land and be free of any associated debt.
On Nov. 22, 2024, Peguis First Nation Real Estate Trust sold 75 per cent of a company that controls the former Meadows Golf Course in East St. Paul to a numbered company owned by Marquess, according to a purchase and development agreement obtained by CBC News.
Marquess, who is best known as the owner of the Parker lands in Winnipeg, earned at least $4.4 million as an adviser to Peguis and its real estate trust between April 2021 and March 2023, according to a list of payments provided to CBC News by the band's chief and council, as well as financial records obtained by CBC News.
The trust originally purchased the 73-hectare (181-acre) Meadows property in 2021 using $10 million of treaty land entitlement funds — money Canada provided to Peguis to settle the federal government's historic land debt to the First Nation.
The trust also took out a $5.5-million loan from a numbered company owned by Maureen Diamond, who is married to Marquess, to cover the rest of the sale as well as initial development costs, according to court documents.
The interest rate on the loan from Diamond's company was initially 5.75 per cent and was later increased to 9.18 per cent, according to court documents.
By mid-October 2024, the real estate trust ended up defaulting on principal and interest payments on that loan to the tune of $5.6 million, according to the Meadows purchase and development agreement, which was first reported by the media outlet Terra Indigena.
According to the agreement, the real estate trust sold 75 per cent of the company that owns the Meadows land to a Marquess-controlled company in exchange for his promise to pay the trust $10 million over a period of up to seven years.
Marquess's company must also pay interest on the $10 million at a rate equal to the Bank of Canada bond benchmark on the day the transaction closed, the agreement stated. That interest rate was 3.29 per cent at the time of the agreement, according to Bank of Canada statistics.
The deal leaves Peguis First Nation Real Estate Trust in control of 6.3 hectares (roughly 16 acres) of the Meadows, allowing it to retain control over a daycare the province paid for on the northwestern edge of the land and another strip of land to the south.
Marquess would be free to develop most of the remainder of the land into a residential neighbourhood, with 2,129 housing units made of single-family homes, rowhouses and multi-family buildings, according to the purchase and development agreement.
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