Trophy Lodge NWT may be open for business again soon.
The decades-old fishing lodge located on the East Arm of Great Slave Lake was denied a business licence by Parks Canada in early 2023, and soon after, the owners requested a judicial review of that decision. After nearly a year of complex legal proceedings, Federal Court judge Guy Régimbald granted the lodge’s request on April 24.
It remains to be seen what Régimbald’s decision means for the denial of the lodge’s 2023 licence, and the status of its 2024 licence application, which was due on April 1.
However, in a factum of the respondents document filed on Feb. 12, the counsel for Parks Canada and the Attorney General of Canada suggested that, if the lodge owners’ legal action proved successful, the verdict should not have any bearing on the 2023 decision, and instead be applied to the lodge’s 2024 business application.
“If the applicant is successful in this judicial review, the appropriate remedy is that this court orders that the decision be set aside,” the Feb. 12 document stated. “However, the order should not extend to the (Parks Canada president and CEO) reconsidering the decision. The application at issue is for a licence that would expire on March 31, 2024 and this court’s decision will either be issued very close to or after that date. As the applicant must submit a new application for a business licence to operate from April 1, 2024 to March 31, 2025, the appropriate remedy is for that process to unfold with the benefit of this court’s reasons for judgment.”
In other words, this seemingly bodes very well for the lodge receiving a licence this year.
The structure that houses Trophy Lodge, located at the former townsite of Fort Reliance, opened in 1927, and at the time served as an RCMP detachment that monitored hunting and trapping. It was repurposed in the 1960s, and in 2022, was purchased by a group of RCMP officers, including Yellowknife resident Andrew Moore.
Because the lodge operates inside Thaidene Nene National Park Reserve, which was created in 2019, its owners are now required to obtain a business licence through the National Parks of Canada Business Regulations of the Canada National Parks Act.
After their 2023 licence was denied, the lodge owners’ noted that, in 2006, the federal government agreed to lease the land to the business until March 2026 — though that did not account for the creation of the national park in 2019.
“In reaching his decision, the CEO of Parks Canada failed to consider, or reasonably consider, or give sufficient weight of the right of the applicant under the lease,” stated a June 13, 2023 document from lodge counsel.
The reasons for Régimbald’s decision have not yet been made public, but it seems that he agreed with that premise.