RE:Why
Prey, there is in fact a post by Leon Wolf stating Modi will be meeting with Encanto next week. Unfortunately, the post is in a Muskowekwan FN Members Only Facebook page. Most of you don't have access to this. But, if you know somebody that does have access.... you would see the following: Here is a response to your MRL/Chief Reg issue I wanted to address. Muskowekwan Resouces Limited (MRL) is a MFN Band owned business entity. It had to be created for us to move forward in some very important business opportunities we had coming to our C&C table. Mainly our Potash JVA with Encanto where we needed an independent board to direct and steer the JVA in terms of providing a business entity or location where a legal "Head Lease" for the the MN/Encanto Potash Project could be legally issued to. That entity is MRL. The Head Lease will be issued by Canada/AANDC on behalf of MFN to MRL/Encanto. Believe it or not, Muskowekwan FN is the ONLY FN in Canada today who have ever gone this far in actually using the "Indian Mining Regulations" here in Canada, this is the link in case you want to actually read this piece of legislation :https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/…/regulations/C.R.C.,_c._956/ , which in fact is a very outdated piece of Canadian AANDC legislation. However, it is this antiquated legislation that MFN has had to use in order to get where we are today in terms of actually attempting to partner with Encanto and mine our own confirmed potash resource. In order for Encanto/MRL to gain access to the mineral potash, which as we all know on MFN is a confirmed resource of 160 M tonnes, Encanto/MRL needs to be issued a mineral lease and then a land lease where the 'mine head' is going to be located which is about 5 Km North of Lestock/Muskowekwan, immediately West of the Grid Road 639 North going toward Wishart. On a quick side note FYI, On the week of April 12th, 2015 MFN Chief Bellerose and Encanto's Representation will be meeting with the country of India's Prime Minister Nerendra Modi. PM Modi will be coming to Canada on a trade mission. More on MRL here. The past members on the MRL Board were: MRL Chairman Jamie Switzer, CEO of MRL Vern Bashiu, CFO AJ Felix, Independent Board Member Right Honourable Bill McKnight, Independent Muskowekwan Band Member Wanda Rockthunder, Muskowekwan's Political Board Member Chief Reg Bellerose, Muskowekwan's Elder Rep Mervin Wolfe. Alvin 'Fox' Campeau was our political rep from 2011 to 2014. MRL Staff was Office Manager Alison Boulding and Communications Liason Holly Geddes, MRL Office Secretary Deborah Laliberte. Now for your question: Why was the MRL Board dissolved? The MRL Board was dissolved because of a reason that I agree was a legitimate reason for dissolve. The reason was that MRL was actually just about broke as of December 31st, 2014. Somewhere in early December The Board Chair Jamie Switzer had called for the laying off of the office staff, without any consultation to do so and without agreement from the majority of the board including Chief Reg who is our political contact on council and as it is, Chief Reg has Ex-Officio status anyway on ALL boards including MRL. Ex-Oficio means he can sit in on ALL MFN board meetings should he choose to or if invited. One of the jobs of the MRL board members is to actually go out and look for money to operate our MRL business entity. Because the MRL Board under Jamie Switzer's Chairmanship were now seriously looking at laying off staff, before Xmas for that matter, the time of year when we most need to provide something for our families especially at that time. It was a contentious issue and one could argue on Jamie Switzer's behalf to agree with him say just lay the staff off at Christmas of all times and it would be all good, but most not all of the C&C's stance was it didn't have to come to that had they done their jobs and found the money themselves or actually came to the MFN C&C and said they needed help to find money to keep MRL afloat. So that told me that they weren't doing their jobs to try find money to keep operations afloat no matter what. It ended up the issue was tabled and MFN C&C themselves managed to find the money to keep our employees and staff at MRL going with a paycheck throughout the holiday season until present day. So in January Chief Reg and two Band Councillors went to Peace Hills Trust (PHT) to look at finding money keeping MRL afloat. It took some convincing from C&C's behalf to get the money to get the operating revenue through PHT, so in essence MFN C&C managed to keep MRL afloat. It was our MRL Board members before Christmas who should of been on top of that situation NOT MFN C&C. Because there was legal implications in this matter, obviously we went to our legal counsel (McKercher LLP) to make sure C&C's decision to dissolve the MRL board was legal and justified. According to their legal advice that we could do so legally and justifiably we were able to make a good sound political decision on this matter and dissolved the MRL Board. C&C are the interim Board should anything come to the MRL table. This won't be long though as a new MRL Board will be assembled soon. The aftermath being MFN C&C have had to make the decision to dissolve all members of the MRL Board. However, only our Office Manager Alison Boulding is still there on staff. Holly Geddes Communications Liason, has resigned from her position due to the fact she is now an elected member of MFN council. As a returning member of the new C&C I will be sure to get a write up on that situation for more clarification for the people on this issue. I am no dummy, I know C&C will get attacked for ANY decision we make but that's the expectation. Lessons have been learned and we have to move on to try not replicate those missteps.