On July 23, 2026, the Supreme Court of Canada granted Buffalo Point First Nation and Buffalo Point Development Corp. Ltd. leave to appeal a 2025 decision of the Manitoba Court of Appeal in a longstanding property taxation dispute between the First Nation and the Buffalo Point Cottage Owners Association (the “Association”). Below is a summary of the background of the dispute and pending appeal.
For many years, about 300 cottagers have leased Buffalo Point reserve lands from Buffalo Point Development Corp. Ltd. (the “Corporation”).
In 2000, the Corporation, the First Nation, and the Association entered into an agreement governing service delivery and local expenditures.
In 2008, the parties revised the agreement and added an arbitration clause. The revised agreement gave the cottagers a role in reviewing local expenditures and limited their contribution to certain local service costs. The agreement established a fee-for-service model for funding local services.
The First Nation subsequently elected to transition to property taxation under the First Nations Fiscal Management Act (the “FMA”). In 2012, the First Nation passed property tax laws pursuant to the FMA, which the Commission approved. The cottagers opposed the First Nation’s exercise of jurisdiction and referred the issue to arbitration. The Association also applied to the Federal Court to set aside the Commission’s decision to approve the property tax laws. The Federal Court dismissed that application. (The Commission intervened in that case.)
In 2015, the First Nation and the Association entered into a new agreement to settle their dispute regarding taxation (the “Settlement Agreement”). Under the agreement, the First Nation agreed to enact a taxpayer representation law containing a mechanism for the binding mediation of disputes concerning annual expenditures. The settlement was intended to preserve a meaningful role for the Association in challenging expenditures it considered excessive or unnecessary. The First Nation enacted a taxpayer representation law, but the Commission declined to approve the law on the basis that it delegated council’s authority over tax rates and expenditures to the Association, which was inconsistent with the FMA. The Commission encouraged the First Nation to revise and resubmit the law and offered to assist, but the First Nation declined to do so. The First Nation took the position that, having attempted to make the law, its obligations under the Settlement Agreement were at an end.
After the Commission declined to approve the proposed law, a further dispute arose concerning implementation of the settlement. The Association applied to an arbitrator for relief. The arbitrator concluded that the First Nation had a continuing obligation to give effect to the settlement and fashioned a revised dispute-resolution mechanism intended to preserve the Association’s ability to challenge expenditures.
The arbitrator ordered the First Nation to make a new taxpayer representation law that addressed the Commission’s concerns and also ordered that, in the event of a dispute about expenditures, the parties were to appoint a mediator to review the disputed expenditures. If the mediator found an expenditure to be excessive, the amount of the expenditure was to become a debt payable to the Association by the First Nation from funds other than local revenue funds.
The First Nation appealed the arbitrator’s rulings, arguing that the remedies exceeded the arbitrator’s jurisdiction because they effectively rewrote the parties’ bargain. The Manitoba Court of King’s Bench agreed that the arbitrator exceeded his jurisdiction. The Association appealed.
The Manitoba Court of Appeal allowed the Association’s appeal and restored the arbitral award. The Court concluded that the arbitrator’s interpretation of the Settlement Agreement was reasonable and that the remedies fashioned by the arbitrator were directed toward preserving the essential objective of the settlement, namely meaningful independent review of disputed expenditures. The result is that the First Nation’s property tax system remains intact, the cottagers are liable to pay taxes for the local services that they need and receive, and the First Nation remains subject to the obligations regarding taxpayer participation in expenditure budgeting recognized by the Court of Appeal.
The Supreme Court of Canada granted the First Nation leave to appeal the decision of the Manitoba Court of Appeal. The hearing date has not yet been set.
This case summary provides our general comments on the case discussed and should not be relied on as legal advice.
See CanLII for the Reasons for Judgment.
