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Sawmill LodgeR.I.P.June 21, 2010 |
It’s been over 9 ½ years since we bought the lodge. There has been a lot of hardship in that time, and not very many good memories. We have struggled with everything from 9/11 less than a year after purchase to economic and tourism downturns. We have encountered deception and death, we have survived betrayals and at every turn done our best to put a good face on things and keep trying to turn the business around.
We have been lied to, we have been cheated, and we have been robbed. We have awakened to a house that is 7 degrees Celsius on January mornings and often over 35 degrees Celsius on summer nights. We have scrimped and saved. We have built furniture, hauled firewood, shoveled snow, painted for hours on end. In 9 ½ years I personally have only spent 5 nights away from the lodge.
We have suffered financially, with our business accruing over a half a million dollars in losses. We have continually injected every asset and every scrap of credit we could find to try to make this thing work. I have personally gone bankrupt because the company has never been able to pay me my agreed wage. I am owed nearly a quarter million dollars in back wages.
We were sold a pig in a poke in October, 2000, and have spent almost ten years marching on a road to disaster. Our every effort to find new investment to change the direction of the business has failed. Our every attempt to sell the property has failed. We have been ambushed by massive expenses, such as the need to replace the well, to replace a dangerous electrical system, to replace faulty equipment and repair negligent workmanship – and none of these things were a result of our actions, but rather of the previous owner.
We have done everything we possibly could to save the business, to save ourselves, and to fulfill our obligations and it has all come to naught. We have suffered, we have lived like paupers. Not even once have we received any kind of support from any level of government, or our creditors.
As the BDC affidavit says, we have filed a suit for remedy over the furnace oil contamination on the property. Even though we have extensive evidence and plenty of witnesses who will validate the fact that the property was contaminated before we acquired it, we are unable to afford the cost of pushing ahead with our suit. Any money that may have helped us to fight for our rights has instead been expended on the property. We still maintain that our creditors and the environmental firm were negligent in enabling the process that led us to ownership of the property. The vendor has even admitted to me and my spouse on July 8th 2008 that there had been an oil leak, but naturally there were no other witnesses when he said it.
Two weeks ago, when we were served with the affidavit and legal documents that brought us here today, I again spoke with lawyers and investment people who told me there would be a way to solve this, a way to go forward with my plan to convert the business into a marina. For two weeks we have again sat in a pressure cooker, being misled and dangled like puppets on a string. And once again all of it added up to nothing. And to make it even more difficult, we have had numerous reports of Mr. Johnson visiting the area and doing all he could to undermine our reputations and make us look as bad as possible – something he did two years ago, too.
The final analysis on the situation is that it is no longer tenable. We have exhausted our every resource, financially, emotionally, and physically. My parents, who are in their mid 70s have squandered the lion’s share of their retirement fund and are now living in fear that they will lose their home. These are people who came to Canada in 1959 with $20 in their pockets and who raised a family and built a life.
They have suffered enormously over this mess, which was totally preventable. If Mr. Johnson had been honest in October 2000, and if BDC had followed their own procedures, none of this would be happening to us.
When we were served with receivership papers, we immediately went into a panic. We have always been law-abiding people and we have no experience with this kind of thing. We just work hard and try to make a living. We immediately asked other people what the process would be, what would happen to us and our personal assets. We were told all kinds of things. We were told the receiver would want us to continue to run the business until a buyer could be found. We were told the receiver would change the locks and we would not even be able to get our own clothes out of the lodge. We were told so many things that we became genuinely terrified.
We were told that Mr. Johnson would probably buy the place back for a fraction of its value, and then be able to sell it for a third time. We believe that – since we have a legal claim against BDC and Mr. Johnson – the court should not allow either of these creditors to profit by our losses. We have done our best to find a buyer for the business at a fair price, and have not succeeded. But we believe it is a major conflict of interest for the people who deceived us regarding the contamination to be permitted to take the property without compensating us. They have deeper legal pockets than we do, but that does not make them right. Sometimes it feels like there is little justice in the legal system.
Last Friday, we decided that there was nothing more we can do. We have nothing more to bring to the battle, and the battle is killing us. The business has no prospects and all the people who are supposed to be on our side want us out.
So, this weekend, we worked feverishly to get our furniture, our tools, our possessions off of the premises. In 48 hours, we undid 9 ½ years of very hard work. We are heartbroken. We are almost penniless. We have very little in the ways of immediate options for housing and work.
We have done our best to improve the Sawmill Lodge property. We have had no choice but to abandon many valuable possessions because we had so little time and no place to take them.
This morning, we have left the property for the last time. For me this is not only about money. It’s about heart and soul. An immense effort has always been maintained to inject every bit of creativity and honesty into our work in Byng Inlet. We are personally so attached to the place that it is difficult to read this to you.
We are therefore handing over the keys to the lodge.
I apologize to the court for my amateur effort to stand up where a lawyer should be standing.
I also apologize for the disarray that we left in the lodge. It was a frantic exercise to move so much stuff on such short notice, and there was no time to restore a form of order that we would have preferred.
Thank you for this opportunity to speak.
Rolfe Burger
Former Manager