A Court of Queen’s Bench judge has ruled that a Tsuu T’ina elder must leave her home at Black Bear Crossing by month’s end so the complex can be demolished.

In making her ruling January 14, Justice Jo’Anne Strekaf said Regina Noel hadn’t established that she would suffer irreparable harm if she moves out of the old military barracks just west of 37 St. S.W. The band evacuated the on-reserve complex last fall, and Strekaf said Noel can’t continue living there and delaying the Nation’s demolition plans. “She has been offered alternative off-reserve housing by the Nation,” said Strekaf.

After Strekaf made her ruling, Noel quietly cried outside the courtroom. “It hurts,” she says. Noel, who lost her Tsuu T’ina membership when she married an off-reserve man in the ’50s, has been fighting to stay in her home since the eviction. She’s worried that if she moves off the reserve, she won’t be allowed back on because she’s not recognized as a member — even though she grew up there and fluently speaks the Tsuu T’ina language. (Evacuees who are band members have been offered on-reserve housing once it’s available.) “I don’t trust them,” says Noel.

Earlier this month, two other Black Bear Crossing holdouts, Fred Fraser and his sister Florence Peshee, accepted the band’s offer of rental accommodation in Calgary for 12 months. Tsuu T’ina lawyer Jeffrey Rath says the Nation is extending the same offer to Noel. “Obviously, there’s no great joy in ever proceeding through eviction proceedings, but throughout, the Nation has treated Ms. Noel more than fairly,” says Rath.

Noel has until January 31 to move out. She says she doesn’t know where she will go. “Nobody has approached me, so I’ll wait and see,” she says.