$8 million tobacco lawsuit launched

Rainbow Distribution owner Robbie Dickson said he’s ready and waiting to take on Quebec in court after ongoing seizures and searches of his business and property that he alleges has resulted in financial losses in the millions.

“My belief in my heart is that I’m not only fighting for myself, but for all of our First Nations people involved in the tobacco industry,” Dickson said. “In my mind, it’s our most important commodity. I’m not just a greedy private businessman. This means a lot more to me than that.”

Dickson is currently suing Revenu Quebec and Quebec’s Attorney General for more than $8 million in damages, after shipments of tobacco and the vehicles carrying them were seized by authorities.

According to court documents filed last month, delivery drivers for Rainbow Distribution were stopped multiple times while heading to other First Nations communities to distribute tobacco products starting in August 2024. During those stops, nearly $150,000 worth of product was seized and the delivery trucks impounded – though new vehicles were purchased to replace those vehicles, those trucks were also seized in April of this year.

Since the filing, Dickson told The Eastern Door that his drivers have been stopped two further times. In those instances, the trucks were impounded, and more than $100,000 worth of tobacco product was also seized.

“It’s extremely frustrating,” Dickson said. “We’re fighting for our sovereign right to the tobacco plant, and our First Nations trading rights to be able to deal with each other throughout Turtle Island and create our own economies.”

Dickson is hoping that a Superior Court judge will make clear the inherent rights of First Nations to trade tobacco tax-free, and he said he’s optimistic based on the outcomes of similar cases, including a decision handed down at the Superior Court in late 2023.

That decision concerned Derek White and Hunter Montour, who were granted a permanent stay of criminal procedures after facing jail time in relation to a tobacco-smuggling bust.

White and Montour launched a constitutional challenge, arguing that First Nations people are exempt from the Excise Act, which concerns the taxation of tobacco products, and that the tobacco trade is protected by a series of treaties that form what is known as the Covenant Chain.

In a landmark decision, a Superior Court judge found that the Covenant Chain is an “unextinct treaty that creates mutually binding obligations,” ruling that First Nations people have an inherent right to the tobacco trade.

Dickson said that he’s confident that case can pave the way for his own lawsuit.

“We have all the ammunition we need in the world to go and fight these guys. According to those decisions, our Native tobacco trade is completely legal. So that’s why I decided to fire off this lawsuit,” he said.

The $8.1 million of damages sought by Dickson include $2 million to cover the economic losses of the seizures, $3 million in lost business opportunities, $3 million in punitive damages, $50,000 for reputational damages, and $50,000 for moral damages.

Dickson told The Eastern Door that at this point, the losses faced total far more than $8 million.

“We’ve lost probably upwards of $15 million now in terms of lost business, the actual product lost, lost vehicles, lost production time, and that’s a lot of money,” he said. “Rainbow Tobacco is quite a big contributor to our community, we try to support as many community programs as we can, and this isn’t just affecting our company, it’s affecting our employees, and it’s affecting the community.”

Quebec’s Attorney General and Revenu Quebec said they had no comment on the matter while the proceedings move through the courts.

The next step is for the case to be put before a judge - Dickson said he is seeking immediate compensation for the seizures, and that his lawyers have written letters to ask for the legal process to be expedited.

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