It could be months before the visitor centre is able to reopen. (Derek Cornet/larongeNOW Staff)

By Derek Cornet

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May 10, 2023 | 5:00 PM

Woodlands and Waterways, which operates a visitor centre in Air Ronge and is owned by the tri-communities, is facing tens of thousands of dollars in GST and PST arrears.

The dire situation at Woodlands and Waterway came to public at two municipal meetings this week. On Monday, Air Ronge council held a special meeting where $25,000 was loaned to the corporation and, on Tuesday, a similar arrangement was discussed in La Ronge during a regular meeting.

Woodland and Waterways’ appointed board members revealed the corporation owes $16,000 in PST and up to $41,000 in GST. In addition, there’s another $12,100 in uncashed cheques and the centre manager, which hasn’t been an employee since April 28, is still owed payment.

The PST and GST reportedly haven’t been paid since 2016.

“We’ve done some budgeting to see where we can get with this loan and a possibility of a loan being proposed with the Town of La Ronge, kind of a Scenario A and Scenario B so we can get back to functioning and operating,” Kristy McDougall said at the Air Ronge meeting.

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“There are a few key things in there that as a board and as an organization we need to be doing further, which is looking at putting policies in place that ensures the organization has oversight, that we have some financial policies in place so that we don’t end up in this situation again.”

McDougall added with the loan from Air Ronge, it will still take months for the centre to be operational. With another $25,000 loan from La Ronge, she said operations could begin in as little as a couple weeks.

Work will also need to be done to do more to make the visitor centre profitable as it is too reliant on a 15 per cent markup on vendor products. McDougall noted some ideas involve renting the boardroom space, selling their own merchandise, finding tourism-focused grants and reaching out to other tourism ventures on how they are able to maintain operations.

“We need to look at our mandate and what is this visitor centre for,” McDougall said. “It goes beyond retail. It’s there to introduce the history of the communities and who we are and what there is for people to do. For that, there are grants available out there and that should be one of the things we are focused on in the future.”

Aside from selling retail goods, the visitor centre is kept afloat with yearly contributions of $25,000 each from Air Ronge, La Ronge and the Lac La Ronge Indian Band. If the corporation were to become insolvent, it would mean legal action against all three communities, the closure of the centre and the potential sell-off of assets.

While Air Ronge did grant a $25,000 loan, the decision to do so from La Ronge has been deferred to the May 23 regular meeting. Administration requested time to ensure such a request was done according to legislation.

“The money was spent on fixing the septic tank. The money was spent on doing a wheelchair lift. The money was spent on dressing up the yard,” said Ryan Veteri, a council-appointed board member of Woodland and Waterways. “It was mismanagement by the manager, the board and the accountant over seven years.”

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derek.cornet@pattisonmedia.com

Twitter: @saskjourno