April 2, 2020
Friends:
The State of Emergency (SOE) continues across Ontario, including Saugeen First Nation.
The request to stay home and not visit your cottage remains in effect.
SCOI strongly supports the Band’s request to stay home and not visit your cottage.
Since the SOE was declared, we have received a number of requests asking about what would happen if a lessee was discovered at their cottage. Some cottagers have expressed support for staying home and serious concern and anger over those among us they believe to be intending to visit their cottage anyway. Unfortunately, we have received many more messages from lessees who have found all kinds of reasons why they should be allowed to go to their cottage. With the continuation of the SOE, SCOI wants to emphasize that the Band has made it clear that you are to stay home.
Unless your cottage is your only Canadian home, there is no reason for you to go there.
This is consistent with the advice of the Prime Minister, the Chief Medical Officer of Health for Canada, the Premier of Ontario as well as the local Medical Officer of Health.
Again, there is no reason for you to go to your cottage. To do so is putting people and whole communities at risk.
To help you appreciate how serious municipal authorities in Bruce County are about urging cottagers staying home, the Mayor of Huron-Kinloss, the municipality immediately south of Port Elgin, has issued a formal declaration that cottagers and trades are forbidden to turn on water at cottages. Those who do are subject to fines of up to $100k and up to one year in jail under the Ontario Emergency Management and Civil Protection Act.
Janice Jackson, mayor of South Bruce Peninsula, has directed the fire department to routinely visit beaches and parks to determine if anyone is present. Anyone found there may be subject to enforcement action.
Although we have no word yet from the Band, they are equally clear that we are to stay away for the protection of the community.
For those of you who are at home, we suggest that you read the lease document that you signed back in 2011 or when you purchased your cottage and started your lease. To review a generic copy of the current lease, please click here. This can also be found on any page under ‘about SCOI’, the second item is a copy of the current lease.
Winter Patrol
We will have a post in the next few days about options for SCOI members to have their property checked.
Service fee payments
After the State of Emergency was first declared, SCOI asked the Band Council to consider deferring the payment due date or partitioning the cost into smaller more affordable installments.
The Council agreed to defer the payment deadline by 60 days to June 1st
without any late fee charges. Unless we hear differently, Service Fees are due on June 1, 2020. Late fees will apply if the payment is made after June 1st.
2020 Lease payment
The 2020 lease payment is due on May 1, 2020.
Many lessees have asked if the lease payment and the lease amount will be adjusted because of COVID19. We do not anticipate that any adjustments will be made to the amount or the deadline for payment. The lease is a lease and it is our legal obligation to adhere to the terms of the lease. Our leases are with Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. The Band has no control over and cannot make changes to the lease agreement once it is signed. It would be up to the federal government to make changes to the lease including the lease amounts or the payment deadline. This would involve the Department of Indigenous Services and the Department of Justice. Given the current emergency, we do not see the federal government being prepared to undertake this. Please pay your lease on time to avoid late fees.
Other issues
There are a number of other issues we are following and have already reported on. If there is new information or a change in our understanding of what is happening, we will be sure to let you know.
Thank you for your continued support. I hope you are all keeping safe and staying in touch with family, friends and your cottage neighbours (electronically) as we all do our part to get through this pandemic safely.
Respectfully,
David Shearman, SCOI President
Cancom Security have started knocking on cottage doors to enforce the State of Emergency. A neighbour said that Cancom staff requested they email Lands Manager Kirk Roote at kirk.roote@saugeen.org to make the Lands Office aware of their residency at their cottage.
Is there any news on how to go about having our new septic installed that is scheduled to start this May? The contractor is still working on band lands and we don’t want to miss our timeframe or we may be put at the back of the line and our lease renewal will be in jeopardy. We would have to put our water lines in for this to happen. Of course , we would not stay after the job has been done. We had our approved building permit and everything ready to go last fall but because the contractor was so busy, our job was put over to first thing this spring. Thank you for any guidance on this matter.
Pat,
There is no way you can go to the cottage. The Band is stopping cottagers from driving onto the Reserves. Septic contractors who continue to work on Band land are communicating with the cottage owners by phone.
There is no need for your water or hydro to be turned on. Septic contractors do not need access to you cottage. If you are installing a lift pump you will need an electrician to hook it up, but that can wait until you are allowed to return to your cottage. If you are uncomfortable with not being there, then you should talk with your contractor about delaying the work until the State of Emergency has been lifted.
Will we be getting an invoice for the lease payment?
See our post of April 3, 2020 for the answer to this question.
The band cashed our service check today, so I would say no relief if you had already sent your cheque in.
Same here.
We should have been notified sooner by either the band or our SCOII council.
Maintenance fee and Lease fees are only accepted via mail (or I assume by dropping payment off if you are local). Without being able to get out to buy stamps are other payment options being considered to be able to meet the deadlines?
Can you please advise
We’ve spoken with the Band about this and they are working with their bank to see if they can accept e-transfers. When we have more information on this we will post.
Thanks for the update. So now that no visitors are allowed on band property whatsoever, that will put an immediate stop to any septic inspections and update work. I am concerned that we will not be able to meet the May 1, 2021 deadline to have our septic up to the new code by that time. I expect I am not the only one concerned. Is there anything SCOI can do on our behalf?
Thank you
We will be posting an update on this later today.
I left a comment regarding septic issues this afternoon and it has been removed. Was there a problem?
Please be patient!
We are dealing with a huge number of comments, emails and issues. We can’t possibly respond to them all immediately.
I’m not sure the band has the legal right to do this … the land is leased from Indian Affairs … they are the landlord… not the band. Perhaps someone whose a lawyer might care to comment?
As a lessee I would think it only reasonable that at a later date when this emergency is over that a rebate be forthcoming for the time one was prohibited from using their cottage when the opportunity for negotiations with both Departments can be reasonably conducted.Many of the cottagers like us are retirees and also many others are laid off employees and can ill afford a payment to which a 6 month usage may be drastically reduced.
SCOI-
Our current lease agreement states that adequate insurance must be maintained. The WINTER PATROL aspect of SCOI is critical to that lease agreement, since it ensures inspection/visitation in the off season. You need to make quick and clear motions to ensure that the winter patrol is continued immediately, or our insurance requiremements may result in cancellations…..which would be a Lease violation.
We are all in this together, and I find the threat of thousands of dollars in fines from the Mayor to be rather distasteful. Since we have no voting privileges…..
And notifying us that our Service Fee is postponed 2 days after it was paid in not acceptable.
Maybe it is time SCOI stopped selectively editing these responses, so other members can benefit from real clear thought about very real concerns…..
The so-called septic system inspections need to be delayed as well. Since we can’t be there to protect our interests.
Respectfully yours
If you mailed your cheque, consider your cheque cashed and your service fee paid. My cheque cleared a couple of weeks ago.
It is unbelievable to me that this site is not unindated by all of us cottages not demanding an explanation as to why the service fee has gone up approximately 13%
We get less services for what we now pay and the band unilaterally raises this so called service fee by 13%
We now only get one major pick up per year where there was two.
Inconsistent pickup of garbage and recycling resulting garbage been unnecessarily left for prolonged periods of time and adding to the yearly b ear problem we have
We now have to take home garbage as the band states it will not pick
Recycling if it has products that can be burned.Therefore adding more frustration if there is a fire band in effect.
Last year the road into our area did not seem that it got much grading attention as rutted roadway with deep pot holes were the norm for most of the season
I understand costs go up and if we had received good service I would not argue with a small and reasonable increase. However,we are clearly not getting proper service for our hard earned dollar,we are getting poorer service and less services for that same dollar.
I would ask that our representatives ask questions re the above and get justification for this unreasonable increase in fees
My cheque was cashed today for the service fee. I do not know what my lease fee is. Since we dropped our cheque off in the door I am assuming they are back to work I would appreciate a bill for my lease fees if possible. Can you check on this for us. Thanks Kelly
Over the past few days SCOI cottagers have been reporting receipt of their lease invoice. These are sent out by the Band.