There is dead air in Whapmagoostui after a dispute over bingo licenses forced the community’s radio station off the air.
The dispute has left other Cree stations and community groups scrambling to protect their main source of funding – bingos.
The problems started last December when the Sûreté du Québec detachment in Whapmagoostui, reacting to a complaint, advised the local radio station it needs a bingo permit from the Quebec government.
The station, on the band lawyer’s advice, decided to stop holding bingos and try to get a license, only to learn the government isn’t issuing any new licenses until 2000.
With its only source of funding gone, the station gradually cut back its on-air hours after Christmas, until money ran out altogether this summer. The station went off the air July 1. It had to lay off its two full-time employees and two part-timers.
Making the problems worse, the local telecommunications association, which runs the station, hasn’t had a meeting in months, making it harder for the station to deal with the crisis, said Frances George, the station manager.
George said many of the non-profit association’s members signed a petition requesting an assembly of the membership to discuss the problems. It hasn’t been held.
The station also asked local and regional organizations for help, but didn’t get much response – except for a temporary grant from the band, which has run out. George said the band is now helping the station find other solutions.
The same problems may soon
be felt in the other Cree communities, where numerous organizations are heavily dependent on bingos and draws held without government permits.
“That’s something we really have to look into now,” said a radio station manager in another Cree community, requesting anonymity. “We don’t have a permit either.”
Staff from the Cree radio stations discussed the issue at a meeting of the James Bay Cree Communications Society last month in Wemindji. Susan Villeneuve, a lawyer for the Cree Regional Authority, was brought in to talk about what to do.
She told JBCCS members the SQ can come into the Cree communities at any time to raid groups that hold unlicensed bingos.
Under Quebec law, all public bingos that offer a prize require a license. The license allows for one weekly bingo of $501 to $3,500 in prizes, plus a special bingo twice a year with prizes of $3,501 to $5,000.
The government charges a $100 fee for the one-year license, plus $28 per each bingo or $39 if there are “surprise tickets.”
Organizations can also get a recreational bingo license that allows a weekly bingo with $500 or less in prizes, plus a daily bingo of $200 max in prizes. No fees are charged for this type of license.
The law also requires a certain percentage of profits to be given out as prizes.
Ginette McMee, spokeswoman for the Régie des alcools, des courses, et des jeux, the provincial agency that governs bingos, confirmed that if a group holds a bingo without a license, the SQ could get involved.
