Jerry Fontaine - Wing Construction

Wing Construction

During the 1998 leadership contest, Fontaine was served with a $100,000 lawsuit from Wing Construction Limited, which had previously received a contract for school construction in Sagkeeng. Wing Construction argued that the Sagkeeng council had not turned over promised funds, and asserted that the company was left to sustain a loss of three million dollars. The federal government later determined that the Wing contract had not been formally approved by the Department of Indian Affairs, and the company was forced into bankruptcy protection in 2000. Fontaine characterized the personal lawsuit as "frivolous", and was later described as saying that the company had overstated the value of its work. Others have disputed this, and Alan Isfeld of the Waywayseecappo First Nation argued that the collapse of Wing Construction created a potentially destructive precedent for aboriginal/non-aboriginal partnerships in Canada.

Separate from the Wing Construction controversy, some members of the Sagkeeng first nation accused Fontaine of inadequate on-reserve housing in 1998. He resigned as chief following a series of protests, saying that he needed to devote all of his attention to the leadership contest. He later defended his financial record against what he described as a "continued siege by government and media alike".