Daniel MacIsaac
Northern News Services

NNSL (May 07/99) - The bureaucrats were there to test the waters, and the houseboaters let them know the going remains rough.

In an effort at mediation, two representatives of the territorial Department of Municipal and Community Affairs hosted a meeting of Yellowknife houseboat owners Monday night to try to help resolve their five-year-old dispute with city hall.

But the meeting's results remain unclear. In fact, the houseboaters argued that with two city-launched lawsuits still before territorial Supreme Court they didn't understand what the mediation was intended to achieve.

"I don't know what MACA is after," said owner Fraser Weir. "We're in the courts already, and it's beyond the point of negotiation...we can't make any sort of agreement that would supersede the decision of the court."

Weir said the two lawsuits -- launched against Anthony Foliot in 1995 and against Foliot, Matthew Grogono and Gary Vaillancourt in 1996 -- remain tied up in pre-trial motions. The nine owners participating in Monday's meeting, including Grogono on a conference call from Nova Scotia, made it clear they feel the city has two options -- to proceed to trial or to drop charges and cover the houseboaters' legal costs, now in the neighbourhood of $60,000.

The houseboaters told Verne Christiansen, assistant deputy minister, on Monday they'd welcome court rulings. They said the law states so clearly that water-based dwellings fall under federal rather than municipal jurisdiction that there is simply no chance the city can win its case and, among other measures, impose taxes on them.

But Vaillancourt said the city's effort, initiated by former administrator Doug Lagore, is about more than just money.

"It's about control," he said. "In Canada there must be no uncontrolled development -- that's the real story, and the rest of the excuses are red herrings."

Christiansen said the city had no hidden agenda in agreeing to talk while legal action continues.

"There's no election on the horizon," he said. "It's just that we initiated the meeting and talked with the transport people and with DIAND and the city just to take stock of the situation."

But Weir was suspicious.

"Can you give some reason for this major change of heart on behalf of these hostile individuals," he said. "There is a reason here, and I just don't buy this good faith argument."

The next day, Weir called the city's original decision to take legal action a "miscalculated bluff" because the owners weren't expected to fight the action. Now, he said, the city finds itself in a difficult position.

"I think the city just doesn't want to quit and walk away with nothing -- after all these years of time and trouble," he said.