Gambler First Nation Chief David LeDoux is suing a recently appointed Manitoba Hydro board member and three other Gambler First Nation members for defamation, alleging they made “false and malicious” public statements, including accusing LeDoux of committing crimes.
LeDoux’s lawsuit, filed in Manitoba Court of King’s Bench in mid-January, is seeking $750,000 plus other damages, alleging Hydro board member Vern Kalmakoff and the other defendants made accusations against him in a Zoom meeting and Facebook posts, including accusations of crimes including fraud, abusing authority and governing poorly.
Those include accusations the chief murdered a man and took out a contract to have a woman killed, the lawsuit alleges. Kalmakoff and two of the other defendants are alleged to be equally responsible for those statements, made against LeDoux during Zoom meetings in July, according to the suit.
The statement of claim says Kalmakoff and those two other defendants are also responsible for the following comments made on Zoom:
- “Gambler [First Nation] is handled as a private business of [Chief LeDoux, his wife and another woman].”
- “Dave was elected as chief by default.”
- “Dave has no business experience.”
Kalmakoff and the other defendants also share the blame for publishing defamatory statements on a Facebook page they created and administered, the suit claims, including accusations LeDoux unjustly evicted a family with five children and refused to haul water to their on-reserve home.
The suit claims the comments made by the defendants on Zoom and Facebook are false and “have transcended any commentary of public interest or opinion and have taken on the form of malicious personal attacks,” intended to harm LeDoux’s reputation and expose him to “hatred, contempt or ridicule.”
LeDoux is also seeking a court order to prevent Kalmakoff from making and publishing defamatory statements, and a court order to prohibit the continuation of the Facebook page.
Asked for lower lease for business, suit alleges
Gambler First Nation, located on Treaty 4 land near Russell, in southwestern Manitoba, has 539 members, only 51 of whom live on-reserve, according to Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada.
Kalmakoff, a Gambler First Nation member and businessman who lives in Brandon, publicly supported LeDoux, who has been chief since 2012, in his successful 2022 re-election bid, according to LeDoux’s suit.
After the election win, Kalmakoff asked LeDoux for help to relocate his business to the Gambler First Nation urban reserve located in Brandon, the court document says.
Kalmakoff also asked LeDoux “to provide a substantially lower lease rate for his business as compared to the other tenants that [Gambler First Nation] had waiting to take the available lease site,” the statement of claim alleges.
According to court documents, LeDoux refused to lower the cost of the lease, after which Kalmakoff “began making false and malicious public statements” about the chief and his wife, Rose LeDoux, who filed a separate defamation suit seeking $350,000 plus other damages.
Chief LeDoux’s lawsuit alleges Kalmakoff and another defendant in particular “published, or caused to be published” a Facebook post that read, “The truth of the matter is David listens to his white supremacist wife. Killing us if we can’t be colonized doesn’t work.”
CBC News sent Adrien Sala, the minister responsible for Manitoba Hydro, the statements of claim. He recommended the appointment of Kalmakoff when the entire Manitoba Hydro board was replaced by the new NDP government six weeks after the October 2023 provincial election.
A press secretary wrote that the government cannot comment on the case as it is before the courts.
Kalmakoff told CBC in a brief interview he has not been served with the statements of claim, but he is aware of the two lawsuits against him because one of his co-defendants has been served.
Milad Alishahi, a partner with MLT Aikins in Regina who is the LeDouxs’ lawyer, said that “given that this is an ongoing litigation, we have no comment.”
None of the allegations in the lawsuit have been proven in court and no statements of defence have been filed.