Judge rules N.W.T. laws apply to activities on Great Slave Lake

An N.W.T. court ruling in a case involving tourism on Great Slave Lake has cast doubt on the widely-held belief that only the federal government controls activities on the water.

The ruling came in a case involving a Yellowknife man who took tourists out on tours of the lake on his boat.

Wayne Guy was charged for operating a tourism business without a tourism licence. Guy argued that he doesn't need a tourism licence because the federal government, not the territorial government (which requires and issues tourism licences), has authority over the lake.

That's similar to the argument houseboat owners on Great Slave Lake have made to repel attempts by the City of Yellowknife to regulate them.

But in a ruling this month a judge said territorial laws, including the Tourism Act, do apply on the water.

In a written decision, Judge Bernadette Schmaltz said just because the federal government regulates navigation and shipping on Great Slave Lake does not mean that territorial laws do not apply to the lake.

"If a marriage took place on one of the houseboats on Great Slave Lake, it would be absurd to assert that the Northwest Territories Marriage Act could not apply...or that the Northwest Territories Motor Vehicle Act had no application to those using the ice road to Dettah."

The position Guy took is also similar to the one the territorial government itself took in 2000, when the City of Yellowknife was trying to assert jurisdiction over houseboats. At that time, the territorial government declared, "Existing federal and territorial legislation does not provide the Government of the Northwest Territories with authority to regulate activities on water in the territories."

The territorial government's stance scuttled the city's attempt to assert jurisdiction and prompted the city to drop a lawsuit it had launched in an attempt to establish it.