A Winnipeg developer is suing Peguis First Nation for defamation, alleging comments the First Nation’s lawyer made in media coverage about a land deal between the community and the developer were “harmful and libelous.”
Lawyer Kevin Toyne filed the statement of claim for developer Andrew Marquess in Manitoba’s Court of King’s Bench on Feb. 13, seeking damages from the First Nation after comments British Columbia lawyer John Gailus made on its behalf in CBC News coverage last year.
The main November 2025 article in question included comments Gailus made about a land deal between Peguis and Marquess involving the former Meadows golf course in the rural municipality of East St. Paul — a deal Gailus characterized as unfair, suggesting the transaction was the latest example of a First Nation losing land and “history repeating itself.”
The lawsuit says those and other comments Gailus made in news coverage of the deal communicated that Marquess is “untrustworthy,” that he “engaged in improper business practices,” and that he “deceived” and “stole land from” Peguis.
It alleges the statements about Marquess were “untrue and defamatory, have injured [his] reputation, and have lowered him in the estimation of right-thinking members of society generally.”
“The use of First Nation government resources to defame a private citizen warrants both punitive damages and solicitor-client costs,” the lawsuit says.
What happened?
The background of the land deal dates back to 2021, when the Peguis First Nation Real Estate Trust acquired the former golf course land.
To do that, the lawsuit says the trust used $10 million from the Peguis Treaty Land Entitlement Trust and got a $5.5 million loan from a numbered company. That company was owned by Maureen Diamond, who is married to Marquess, according to previous court documents.
Things changed in the First Nation in April 2023, when current Chief Stan Bird won an election, ousting former chief Glenn Hudson in an election Hudson later disputed. Litigation between the two is ongoing before the Federal Court of Appeal, the lawsuit says.
After that election, the First Nation stopped working with several of its advisers “at the behest of Chief Bird,” because he “does not trust anyone that worked with former chief Hudson,” the lawsuit alleges.
That included Marquess, who had been giving Peguis consulting and advisory services, the lawsuit says.
The First Nation also passed a band council resolution stating its chief and council did not have confidence in its then-lawyer Murray Sinclair and his firm, who it replaced with Gailus, the lawsuit says.
A debt and a deal
By the summer of 2024, Peguis’s chief financial officer and several members of council became aware the $5.5 million loan was maturing and needed to be repaid, the lawsuit says.
At the time, the Peguis trust was exploring refinance and/or sale options to repay that loan, and Bird was aware of efforts to sell the Meadows land, it alleges.
When the loan matured in the fall of 2024, the trust defaulted on it, the lawsuit says.
That’s when it sold 75 per cent of its units in the limited partnership involved in the golf course land to a Marquess-controlled corporation — which the lawsuit says was done in exchange for Marquess assuming the principal balance and accrued interest on the loan, the payment of specific future development costs and $10 million.
The lawsuit says until the land can be subdivided to allow the trust and Marquess’s company to take title to their parcels of land, Marquess’s repayment obligation “is evidenced by a promissory note” — effectively, a promise to pay in the future.
Once the subdivision process is complete and the individual subdivision plans are approved by the Manitoba Land Titles Office, a mortgage will be registered to secure the outstanding principal amount Marquess owed to the trust, the lawsuit says.
That transaction closed around November 2024, with the Rural Municipality of East St. Paul and the Red River Planning District approving the subdivision application the following year.
Effort to harm to reputations: lawsuit
As of Nov. 20, 2025, when the CBC article was published, the land remained in the name of a Peguis numbered company, the beneficial owner of the land was still its limited partnership and the subdivision process that would allow the trust to register a mortgage was close to complete, the lawsuit says.
Bird published a pre-recorded address on Facebook days later, the lawsuit says, alleging he “had an opportunity to dispute or disavow that the defamatory statements were made on behalf of [Peguis],” but didn’t.
The lawsuit also claims Peguis made defamatory allegations about Marquess breaching “an alleged fiduciary duty” to the First Nation in a lawsuit of its own filed in 2024. That was done “in an effort to harm the reputation of Marquess and thereby tarnish the reputation of former chief Hudson,” Marquess’s suit alleges.
It also alleges Peguis rushed to issue that statement of claim before the deal between them was complete “to impugn the timing of the occurrence of the transaction,” and that Peguis shared that lawsuit with CBC before serving it on Marquess.
Marquess’s lawyer Toyne said he had no comment on the lawsuit. Gailus and Peguis First Nation did not respond to a request for comment by deadline.