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Hamilton Spectator
a day ago
- Hamilton Spectator
Millions in ‘unfair' legal fees part of a broader problem in First Nations law
Legal fee agreements between a First Nation and its former law firm were unfair and, in some cases, unenforceable, a Saskatchewan judge concluded. Some legal experts say the issue is more common and causes more harm among First Nations than with the general population. The decision, released Tuesday, settles a 2021 dispute over millions of dollars in legal fees and penalties tied to historic claims against the federal government. 'This was obviously a big win for Beardy's and Okemasis Cree Nation, but this is also a big win for First Nations generally,' said Edwin Ananas, chief of the nation, in a recent press release. In 1999, Calgary-based Maurice Law, which describes itself as 'the first and largest Indigenous-owned national law firm in Canada,' was brought in to help prepare claims for treaty payments withheld by Canada after the 1885 Northwest Resistance. At the time, Canada had labelled the nation and other Prairie First Nations as 'Rebellion Nations' and cut off their treaty rights as punishment for their supposed role in the uprising. By 2005, the communities had signed formal retainer agreements with Maurice Law. The Beardy's case was chosen as a test to set a legal precedent, making it easier for others to succeed. Over the years, the legal work expanded to cover multiple claims — annuities, salaries, agricultural benefits and flood losses. The law firm recommended its clients take out litigation loans and insurance to cover legal costs as the cases dragged on. By 2015, Beardy's had won a $4.5-million judgment for withheld annuities, and in 2024, the nation reached a $4.1-million settlement with Canada for unpaid salaries to chiefs and council. However, concerns about legal fees and financing grew. According to the court document , Ananas and the council were worried about rising legal bills and debt from loans and insurance. In 2021, they ended their contract with Maurice Law. After the termination, the law firm demanded more than $1.1 million in fees plus a share of future contingency payments — even though it had already been paid through loans and insurance. The agreements included what the court called 'poison pill' clauses: if the clients switched lawyers before a settlement, they could owe up to half the expected contingency fee, plus other charges. 'The penalty or 'poison pill' provisions in the retainer agreements are designed to punish and discourage the client from terminating Maurice or suffer severe financial consequences,' the judge wrote. The nation argued the agreements were confusing and didn't clearly say which claims were covered or what fees would be charged. The court found these penalty clauses unfair and ruled the law firm should be paid a reasonable amount for the services they provided, rather than the specific fees in the disputed contracts. The judge ordered Maurice Law to reimburse Beardy's more than $826,000, as well as $100,000 in enhanced costs, an additional penalty for the unfair agreements. About $492,000 — the 12 per cent contingency fee claimed by the firm — remains in trust until the final amount is decided. The court also found troubling billing practices. Records showed one lawyer claimed 25 hours in a single day, and the nation was charged 338 hours just to draft a declaration of claim. The judge found many of the same problems with contracts Maurice Law had with another First Nation, One Arrow, including confusing terms and harsh penalty clauses, and ruled those agreements were also unfair or unenforceable in part. The judge did not order Maurice Law to pay a specific sum back to One Arrow at this stage. Instead, the court said any fees Maurice Law claims from One Arrow must be based only on the fair value of the legal work actually done. If One Arrow and the law firm can't agree on what's fair, they can return to court to have the fees reviewed again. In a statement, Maurice Law said working on contingency is a way for the firm to take on clients who can't afford to pay up front. 'We have worked for decades on claims with no guarantee of success. We have spent thousands of hours on claims that were unsuccessful or have not yet been resolved. We believe this is fair – we are only paid a contingency fee when we win. In doing so, we enhance access to justice for Indigenous communities in need. When we are successful, we are paid a percentage of the award to our client – typically in the 4 to 12 per cent range, which is standard in our industry, and lower than what many other firms practicing aboriginal law charge,' the firm wrote. Maurice Law said it intends to appeal the judicial decision. 'We acknowledge a small number of our fee arrangements were recently overturned by the Saskatchewan Court of King's Bench. We believe the decision of the Court of King's Bench includes errors of law and we intend to appeal this decision to the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal.' The firm said it donates a portion of its contingency fees back to First Nations, amounting to $2 million so far in 2025. Indigenous Services Canada did not respond to a request for comment by deadline. Legal experts who spoke to Canada's National Observer following last Tuesday's Maurice Law case say that while contingency fee arrangements were designed to improve access to justice, they have often led to predatory practices, windfall profits for lawyers and unfair outcomes that disproportionately harm First Nations clients. This issue is especially common in Saskatchewan because the province has seen a surge in large, complex First Nations litigation and settlement activity in recent decades — drawing more law firms to the region in search of substantial payouts, said Sara Mainville, managing partner of JFK Law. 'There are more and more law firms that are really attracted to this work because of the large payouts,' Mainville said. She pointed out that the principle of 'sharing' in Indigenous culture is sometimes taken advantage of by lawyers. Some firms have justified large bonuses or 'contingency fees' as a way of sharing in the community's success. 'First Nations feel like they should share, because they've been successful,' Mainville said. '[But] those don't really align with the fact that as lawyers under our law societies, we get paid. We get paid for the work we do, we don't necessarily get bonuses.' Cynthia Westaway, senior counsel at First Peoples Law LLP and former founder of Westaway Law Group, said these issues are especially acute for First Nations — who often come to the negotiation table from poverty resulting from the loss of lands and other historic wrongs. 'Professional support should never take advantage of the limited resources and lack of leverage of First Nations to negotiate a fair contract,' she said. Westaway said contingency fees make sense in certain class actions, such as the recent cases involving the forced sterilization of Indigenous women, but are less appropriate for claims already accepted by Canada for negotiation of compensation owed. 'While there may be situations where contingencies are reasonable, l have never had to go that route to successfully reach large settlements,' Westaway said. Westaway said historically, Canada didn't fund historic claims. Now it usually covers the cost of reports and provides about $110,000 per claim each year for negotiations. Given this support, contingencies are rarely needed, and courts are unlikely to find fees of five to 20 per cent reasonable on large settlements, which often range from $200,000 to $700,000. These communities have already waited 120 to 150 years to be compensated for their losses, she said. However, delayed funding forces councils to enter into contingency fee agreements to keep their cases moving. She said in all cases, First Nations should not have to go to court over legal fees. Instead, any past contingencies should be reviewed for reasonableness and updated to ensure First Nations are paying reasonable fees in line with the case law. 'Canada should be providing funding earlier and more consistently, so there's no need for a contingency,' Westaway said. Mainville said in her own practice, contingency fees are used 'when there's no other option' but 'taking an unfair cut of damages that are justly given to that generation of citizens of that nation' is 'distasteful' and undermines the purpose of reconciliation. Likewise, Mainville said that 'poison pill' clauses are not common in most law firms. 'It's not a good model retainer, not best practice to use those kinds of [clauses] that suggest that there's sort of a poison pill if you try to terminate that law firm.' Mainville said. 'All my clients have the right to terminate me, they all have the right to seek another lawyer and there's no penalty for them going elsewhere.' Westaway agreed — 'No First Nation should ever be punished for choosing a different service provider,' she said. In its statement, Maurice Law blamed its competitors for 'encouraging clients to challenge our fees.' 'While they claim to be doing this for noble reasons, the truth is they are being opportunistic. Many of our competitors would never have taken these claims on several years ago, when the client could not afford to pay and the prospect of success was uncertain. These firms wait until Maurice Law has advanced the claim to the finish line, after years of work with no or minimal compensation, and then attempt to lure our clients away at the last minute, when success is guaranteed due to the hard work of Maurice Law.' Indigenous organizations are pushing for urgent reforms to how law societies regulate legal fees charged to First Nations. In December 2023, the Assembly of First Nations passed a resolution demanding that the Federation of Law Societies and all provincial and territorial law societies create rules — developed in partnership with First Nations — to ensure legal fees are fair and reasonable. The Indigenous Bar Association has called for specific measures, including caps on the percentage lawyers can charge in contingency fee agreements, standardized forms for contingency fee arrangements, mandatory training for lawyers working with Indigenous clients and bans on fees that aren't justified by the actual legal work performed, rather than simply being tied to the size of settlements. Requests for an interview were sent to the AFN and bar association, but no responses were received by deadline. Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada told Canada's National Observer it cannot comment on legal fees charged to First Nations by independent law firms. The department says it does not provide legal advice to First Nations during negotiations, nor does it advise them on which firms to use. Lawyers are regulated by law societies in each province and are accountable to their clients. A spokesperson for MLT Aikins LLP, the firm representing Bready's in the matter involving Maurice Law, declined to comment, saying Maurice Law has initiated a defamation lawsuit in Alberta against the firm and three MLT Aikins lawyers in their personal capacity. In an emailed statement, the Law Society of Saskatchewan said it is aware of the court decision and is reviewing it. The society said that its authority to investigate legal fees is tied to the courts under The Legal Profession Act, 1990, meaning the courts first decide if a contingency agreement or legal fee is fair and reasonable before the Law Society can investigate for potential breaches of its Code of Professional Conduct. The Law Society noted it provides guidance to lawyers through practice advisors, management courses, and ethics rulings and participates in national reviews of ethical rules — including those addressing the needs of First Nations, Inuit and Métis clients — through the Federation of Law Societies' Standing Committee on the Model Code of Professional Conduct. 'This shouldn't be happening in today's society ... I hope a lot of other First Nations review and take into consideration the path moving forward,' Ananas, Beardy's and Okemasis Cree Nation chief, told Canada's National Observer. He said the court's decision sets a precedent for Indigenous communities across Canada to assert their rights so more settlement funds can be directed to community priorities instead of legal fees. 'At the end of the day, we're saving millions and millions of dollars. Which First Nation out there doesn't need millions to be saved? There are so many shortfalls we overcome on a daily, yearly basis. Fighting for that extra dollar was definitely well worth it.' The Saskatchewan judge's ruling is part of a broader trend of First Nations challenging the fairness and transparency of legal fee arrangements, especially in high-stakes, historic claims against the Crown. In 2024, Mikisew Cree First Nation sued Maurice Law, claiming the firm took over $8 million in legal fees from their 'Cows and Ploughs' settlement but failed to provide proper invoices or records. Mikisew says Maurice Law promised to return two per cent of the settlement (about $2.7 million) but only paid back $250,000, and then stopped. The First Nation also says it was not given a chance to challenge the fees at the time, and Maurice Law's handling of loans and insurance was unclear. Mikisew is now asking the court to order the return of at least $2.25 million and to review all legal fees paid to the firm. In 2025, Sweetgrass First Nation went to court after Maurice Law demanded immediate payment of over $5.4 million in legal fees from a settlement trust. Sweetgrass had already ended its contract with the firm and wanted the fees reviewed first. The judge ruled that Sweetgrass's right to have the fees assessed comes first, and Maurice Law cannot demand instant payment before a review. The court also found that the law firm's agreements did not give it a special claim to the settlement money and ordered the funds to be held until the fees can be fairly assessed. In 2016, the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal found that Maurice Law had already been hired on an hourly basis to represent Sakimay First Nation in land and flooding claims, but after a multi-million dollar settlement was nearly finalized, the firm pushed Sakimay to sign a new deal that would give Maurice Law a three per cent bonus on the settlement. The court decided this bonus agreement was unfair and unenforceable because Maurice Law misled Sakimay about what other lawyers were charging, failed to advise them to seek independent legal advice, and did not clearly explain that the original hourly contract already covered the new work. Beyond Maurice Law, the push for fairness and transparency in legal fees is happening across the country and involves other law firms as well. In 2024, two Ontario First Nations — Atikameksheng Anishnawbek and Garden River — challenged a massive $510-million legal bill related to the $10-billion Robinson Huron Treaty settlement, arguing the amount was excessive and should be reviewed before lawyers are paid. In Alberta, Tallcree First Nation challenged a 20 per cent contingency fee agreement with Rath & Company that would have paid the law firm $11.5 million from a $57.6-million agricultural benefits settlement. The court found this fee was unreasonable, given the expected work and outcome, especially since the actual legal work was valued at less than $400,000. In 2022, the Alberta Court of Appeal upheld a lower court's decision to slash the fee to $3 million, ordering the law firm to refund more than $8.5 million to Tallcree. — With files from Matteo Cimellaro Sonal Gupta / Local Journalism Initiative / Canada's National Observer Error! Sorry, there was an error processing your request. There was a problem with the recaptcha. Please try again. You may unsubscribe at any time. By signing up, you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google privacy policy and terms of service apply. Want more of the latest from us? Sign up for more at our newsletter page .
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Yahoo
P.E.I. First Nation says fisheries officers seized 300 Indigenous lobster traps
MALPEQUE BAY — A First Nation in Prince Edward Island says federal fisheries officers seized 300 lobster traps over the weekend belonging to Indigenous fishers. Darlene Bernard, chief of Lennox Island First Nation, says the seizures from Malpeque Bay were shocking because her community has exercised its treaty right to manage the lobster fishery since 2022 without issue. Bernard says Lennox Island's 15 fishers set out 1,500 traps when the federally regulated lobster fishing season began in late April, the same number as the past few seasons. A spokesperson with Fisheries and Oceans Canada would not confirm the seizures, saying only that Ottawa has authorized 1,000 lobster traps for Lennox Island First Nation fishers for the 2025 season. Spokesperson Dan Bate says the fishers are required to meet licence conditions, and that contravening regulations can be subject to enforcement. Bernard says the seizures are illegal because they violate a Supreme Court of Canada decision that affirms the right of Indigenous Peoples to earn a moderate livelihood through fishing. This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 20, 2025. The Canadian Press Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Hamilton Spectator
14-05-2025
- Hamilton Spectator
Suspended Justice: Mystery of drowned fishermen reinvestigated in Tyendinaga
In 2015, two young men went out to spearfish on the Bay of Quinte. On their return, they planned to teach a younger nephew the Mohawk way of preparing the fish. Instead, they disappeared. Matthew Fairman was 26 and Tyler Maracle just 21 when they drowned under mysterious circumstances. On May 5, 2025, the Toronto Police Service agreed to reinvestigate the 2015 drowning deaths of the two fishermen from Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory, a decision reached thanks to a two-year investigation by Kenneth Jackson, a journalist from Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN) Ottawa, and a pair of families who refused to give up on their young men. Jackson has over 20 years of experience in the journalism industry, and his work covers topics from politics and corruption to social justice and human rights. He is known for digging in. After the deaths of four First Nation teen girls in care, Jackson spent the next five years reporting on the child welfare system in Ontario, uncovering systemic issues and injustices affecting Indigenous children and families. The investigative work earned multiple awards, including the 2020 Michener Award for public service journalism, which he received with Cullen Crozier. Jackson's documentary APTN Investigates: Secrets of the Bay delves into the mysterious deaths of the two fishermen. The accepted police theory at the time was that the two men were out at night stealing fish from gill nets and that they overloaded their boat, swamped, and drowned. Their family and friends disagree. 'Police were saying, 'It's a drowning, it's a drowning. They were stealing fish,'' says Matty Fairman's mother in the documentary, 'and we were saying 'No, it's not. Those boys wouldn't have been doing that, and they both knew how to swim.'' Family and friends suspect foul play. Maracle and Fairman disappeared on April 26, 2015, after setting out to spear fish in their favourite spot at a lighthouse at the end of Telegraph Narrows on the Bay of Quinte. They said goodbye to Maracle's dad, Robin, around 1:30 a.m. The boat ride, with an eight-horsepower motor, should have taken approximately half an hour. No one knows if they made it to the lighthouse, but their cellphones disconnected from a nearby cell tower at 3:09 a.m. Their families reported them missing by 9 a.m. According to the documentary, the truck the boys drove to the Bay was left where it would reasonably have been parked. Their shoes were neatly left on the ground next to the truck, which made sense because that was where they would have put on their chest waders. That day, searchers found Tyler's jacket and phone almost directly across the Bay from where the men launched. Mitts belonging to Matty were spotted. Their chest waders were located just west of the Skyway Bridge on the south shore. Tyendinaga Police controlled the land-based investigation. The Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) searched the depths of the Bay using side-scan sonar, which detects and creates images of objects on the floor of a body of water. Police divers were also deployed, and a military helicopter looked down from above. A boat was found, but it was covered in zebra mussels, and police research determined it had been there for 17 years. A bike and a tire were also pulled from the depths. Volunteers dragged the bottom with hooks —- but still nothing. Jackson says in the film, 'Police records show that several days into the search, the OPP made a promise to the families [that] neither the boys nor their boat were in the water.' Then, after 13 days of searching, the men's bodies were found on Friday, May 8, 2015. Jackie Perry, then-media relations officer with the Napanee OPP, said in news reports at the time that around 2:30 p.m., members of the OPP marine unit responded to a VHF radio alert about a man in the water between the Skyway Bridge and Lighthouse Island. After recovering the first body and returning to shore, they were approached by another boater around 3:15 p.m., who reported finding a second body in the same area. Both bodies were floating in the narrows despite it having been heavily searched for 13 days, and despite the OPP's promise that the men weren't in the Bay. The following day, Mohawk Fire Department volunteers used a simple underwater camera to find the boat submerged near where the bodies were found in about 15 feet of water. Inside the boat were all the things the men had taken with them for spear fishing. There was also a net of rotting fish belonging to another man, who owns land along the water. Without weighing or counting the fish, Tyendinaga Police and the OPP quickly concluded that the fishermen stole the net, which overloaded their boat and caused them to drown. The families were devastated. They did not believe their sons were thieves, and they knew both could swim. Jackson says that in 2018, a friend contacted him who wondered if he could help the Maracle and Fairman families, but he was too busy digging deep into his child welfare investigation to do so. 'Then fast forward to May 2023, two years ago. I had finished the work that I wanted to do on child welfare, exposed sexual predators up north, and got all these things done that I felt I needed to do, and was ready for the next chapter,' he shares. 'I remember sitting on my front porch, reflecting… what's next? And Tyler [Maracle]'s mom, Tammy, popped into my head.' So Jackson reached out to the friend who had asked him to help in 2018, asking if anything had changed in the past five years and if the case had perhaps been solved. 'And they go, 'No, it's gone pretty quiet.' I go, 'Oh, has the mom gone quiet too?' And actually that's kind of funny, because if you know Tammy Maracle, you know that she would never go quiet,' Jackson says. According to the documentary, Tammy Maracle and others have been protesting for the case to be reopened since it was closed. As a result, the OPP reinvestigated in 2020. They estimated that the boat had been carrying approximately 600 pounds of fish; they did not change their opinion that it had been swamped (filled with water, but remaining upright). When Jackson contacted the families, he promised to investigate the story, but to do so with his eyes open. He says he told them, 'I don't have an opinion either way. I know you guys are all convinced, but I will look at everything you have. We're going to look there, we're going to talk to everyone we can, and I'll keep an open mind —- but the police theory is probably right.' Jackson has nothing against police work, saying, 'More often than not, they get it right.' But he was convinced by the persistence of the families who insisted that the men were not thieves and that they didn't just swamp their boat and drown. 'So I started peeling back the layers of it all, and we started looking at things. We did our first two chapters of Secrets of the Bay in the fall of 2023, and I was starting to see the holes in the case. I saw a lot of sloppy police work. It was unfortunate.' He says he told the families, 'This was done so sloppily that you may never get the evidence that you need... anything forensics [could detect is] gone, right?' 'Like the truck the boys drove to the water —- It was left outside for a week; people climbed all over it. Things were left. Things weren't done,' Jackson says. 'Tyendinaga Police were in charge of the overall investigation... The OPP helped because water was their jurisdiction. Still, it was Tyendinaga's lead… Long story short, they didn't respond, in my opinion, quickly enough to certain things. They didn't take it seriously enough at first.' So he started to test the police theory. The family said police didn't understand gill netting, so Jackson decided he would go and pull a gill net in to see what would happen. He also says the families and others have provided information that he can't put on the record yet, for legal reasons. In chapter two of the documentary, which was filmed in fall 2023, Jackson and the team 'decided to dig up the boat boys used the night that they supposedly drowned.' 'It was buried because some people convinced the families that it was a Mohawk tradition to bury the boat to protect others from ever drowning the same way in the boat. They're thinking it was cursed, almost, right?' says Jackson. And is that a legitimate tradition? 'Not really,' says Jackson. 'A lot of people dispute that. Tyler's father, who is Mohawk, disputes that.' 'I just had a gut feeling that that boat had to come up,' Jackson says, noting he is very grateful to BuildAll Contractors in Shannonville for providing employees, backhoes, and gas to unearth the boat. 'It was all done for free, right? Which is pretty cool.' 'We dug it up. It was still intact,' Jackson says. Everything was still there, including about 600 feet of fishing net, according to Jackson, 'But then over the winter, it sat outside Tyler, Robin, and Tammy's home.' After some conversations, the suggestion emerged that they should take the boat out on the water, he says. Jackson explains the thinking: 'Let's see how it reacts. Let's test the police theory. Can we get enough weight to go down? Because the police theory is that the boat had too much weight (600 pounds) of stolen fish in the netting that was found in it.' That would be a heck of a lot of fish. Jackson agrees, 'Yeah, it's proved to be an insane theory: [that] the boat got weighed down so much that water just slowly came over the sides, filling it, which is called swamping, and it slowly sank flat to the bottom, [while the boys did] nothing to stop it from happening.' On a calm night. When both of them could swim. 'The families think [the boys and the nets] were taken out, put back later, to make it look like they were stealing fish or had drowned then. And to be honest, there's no evidence to disprove that theory. It's a plausible theory,' the reporter says. He points out that the boat was found about 15 feet underwater. When he's flown drones over it, as can be seen in the documentary, the water is pretty transparent, and you can see things on the bottom at that depth. Furthermore, the old zebra mussel-covered boat was found with sonar in much deeper water. 'And they had not only sonar but also an underwater camera from the fire department that they were using going through it, which is clear as day when you see [the boat],' says Jackson. 'One of the things I never said on camera is that I had a conversation with Tammy before we put the boat on the water... 'Tammy, if this boat goes down, we're done. I can't do anything more. I've run out of options. If it goes down, the police are right.'' But they weren't, and APTN Investigates proved it. Jackson describes rigorous testing: 'We almost set it up to sink because we put all the weight in [1,500 pounds, not the 600 pounds police estimated] and then back into the water. So at one point, I think, 'It's gonna go right to the bottom; it won't even float.'' 'But it not only went in,' he says, 'I couldn't get it down. I mean, there's no way. There's no way for two young men weighing 140 pounds each. I was 230 [pounds] then, and the guy who helped me was 230 pounds; he and I alone can't get it down. The boat had way more weight than the boys would have had.' He marvels, 'There are so many things the police didn't do, and one of them is they didn't confirm with the manufacturer what boat it was. So I went online, looking through historical advertising for Smoker Crafts.' Jackson says he found the boat the men used, a 1970s-era model. It 'says it has a wider flare of its bow, making it a wider, sturdier boat in dangerous water.' A series of videos shows them filling the boat with 820 pounds of bagged sand and mounting the same inoperable eight-horsepower motor used by the fishermen for additional weight in the first test. With Jackson inside the boat, the total weight was 1,100 pounds. For the second test, they used a working eight-horsepower motor to manoeuvre across the Bay, beginning at 1,100 pounds and increasing to over 1,500. They made quick starts and stops, zig-zagging and making sharp turns. At the end of the test, after the boat didn't sink, they lowered the weight back to 1,100 pounds, and three men pushed on the side to swamp and sink it. It was the only way the boat would go down. Jackson's conclusion: 'Someone purposely did it.' Between 2013 and 2015, there was a net war in Tyendinaga. Jackson says that netting can be very territorial: 'Where people have nets in certain spots, they consider it their territory.' Net buoys have clips with numbers that indicate who owns them, and people were cutting each other's nets or stealing them. He can't be sure whether Maracle and Fairman were involved in that, but he doesn't believe they were because their families don't believe they were. The fact remains: 'There was tension on that water.' Did the boys run afoul of an angry gill netting group? Or perhaps they stumbled onto an organized crime operation in the act. The Bay of Quinte has a long history of smuggling, courtesy of its winding shape, sheltered coves, and proximity to the U.S. border. 'You can basically go anywhere in the world from there,' Jackson points out. Notoriously, during American Prohibition (1920–1933), the Bay became a key launching point for smuggling alcohol into the U.S. Rum-runners used fast boats to dodge the authorities in nighttime runs. Smuggling has never vanished entirely from the area, more recently involving contraband cigarettes, drugs and even human smuggling. It remains a possibility that the boys found themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time. Finally, the young men's behaviour that night just doesn't support the idea that they were planning to steal fish nets. 'They had the spears, and they were wearing their chest waders because their shoes were neatly next to the truck. You would remove them, put your chest waders on, and get into your boat,' Jackson explains, pointing out that experienced fishermen would know that wearing chest waders when attempting to steal gill nets would be foolhardy —- bending over the water brings with it the chance of falling in, which would cause the waders to fill and pull you under. 'They purposely sat in Tyler's garage fixing a spotlight to spear fish,' Jackson says. 'They have five car batteries in there [to operate the light]. They had a trolling motor.' 'Actually, earlier that day, they were out with Matty's nephew, Madison, and they wanted to spear and show him, 'This is how you clean a fish. This is how we do this as Mohawk.'... The next morning they were going to show the little boy how to do it,' he says. 'It's heartbreaking.' But now, thanks to his documentary and the tests with the boat, the case is reopened, giving Jackson hope. 'This is the first time that dedicated homicide detectives will be investigating the deaths of Matty and Tyler, and I think that's incredible, and I think that's amazing for the families,' he expresses. 'I think that's always been needed here because it's never been treated as a crime, right? Even when it originally happened, the case was always a missing persons case. It was never a criminal investigation.' Now, a full decade since the men's deaths, Ontario's chief coroner agrees that the police theory of how the boat went down was incorrect. Dr. Dirk Huyer visited the Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory to meet privately with the families. APTN Investigates' findings prompted Huyer to bring his own experts to run tests last summer. The families finally heard the results of those tests on March 3, 2025, and OPP Commissioner Thomas Carrique requested that the Toronto Police Service Homicide Unit reinvestigate the case. On Monday, May 12, 2025, Huyer discussed his role in the investigation: changing the cause of death from 'accidental' drowning to 'undetermined' drowning. While he is prohibited from discussing specifics, even though many details have been discussed publicly, Huyer talked about his role as chief coroner, which is to investigate deaths that are not known to be natural and which are generally sudden and unexpected. 'When we investigate those [deaths], we're trying to find answers to five questions,' he explained. 'Who passed? When did they pass? What was the location where they passed? What was the medical cause of death?' The fifth question comes after making these determinations, when the coroner must then classify the death as natural, accidental, a suicide, a homicide —- or 'sometimes the cause is undetermined, where we can't fully answer the questions as to what might have happened.' Huyer credits Jackson, APTN, and the men's families for doing their tests on the boat, calling into question the mechanism of how it sank, and bringing it to his attention. 'In any death investigation, when we hear questions, we look at them and consider them within the investigation. In this particular circumstance, there were questions about how the boat sank. How did the men get in the water?' he said. He brought in his own team of experts who understand how boats work to review the boat itself and provide their thoughts. After their analysis, they could not agree with the OPP's original determination. 'The boat didn't sink in the way that the OPP thought it did,' said Huyer. Because the mechanism of how the boys ended up in the water could no longer be differentiated, the chief coroner had to change the classification from accidental to undetermined, he shared. 'Then I also contacted the Ontario Provincial Police to let them know that we have this new information, and they decided to ask another police service to take the next steps, so they reached out to the Toronto Police Service. That's the whole journey.' On Saturday, May 3, 2025, the cold case section of the Toronto Police Homicide Unit agreed to lead the investigation. Thanks to APTN and Jackson, the families may finally find peace. Anyone with information is asked to call Toronto Police at 416-808-7400 or email homicide@ . 'Suspended Justice' is an in-depth column written by reporter Michelle Dorey Forestell, which examines cold cases in the Kingston, Frontenac, Lennox and Addington (KFL&A) region. Launched in January 2024, the column is published monthly in an attempt to keep cold cases on the minds of those living in the area, with the hope that anyone whose memory is jogged might reach out to police with information. The Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) can be reached at 1-888-310-1122. Tips about any crime can be submitted anonymously to Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS (8477), or online here . If there is a case that's gone cold in the KFL&A region that you would like Kingstonist to look into, please contact Editor Tori Stafford via email at .
