SaskatoonThe former manager at Buffalo Narrows Broadcasting Corporation is serving a community-based sentence after admitting he stole more than $200,000 from the station in 2017.Michael Bouvier to serve sentence in community after guilty plea to 2017 fraudDan Zakreski · CBC News · Posted: Sep 10, 2025 2:32 PM EDT | Last Updated: 3 hours agoThe Buffalo Narrows Broadcasting Corporation station had more than $200,000 stolen from it by an employee in 2017, according to a recently published court decision. (CIBN/Facebook)It was a fraud that almost broke a community radio station in northern Saskatchewan.The details of what happened to the Buffalo Narrows Broadcasting Corporation (CIBN) in 2017 are contained in a 14-page provincial court decision by Judge Michael Segu from Aug. 8, 2025. Michael Bouvier had pleaded guilty to fraud and Segu’s decision laid out the facts, and his sentence.”The impact of Mr. Bouvier’s actions on the radio station, and by extension, the community, cannot be overstated,” Segu wrote.”It is by sheer force of will of the board members that the radio station even exists today.”According to the decision, Bouvier began working as manager at the non-profit station in 2012. It financed operations by providing cable services and community fundraisers, such as bingo nights. Bouvier was in charge of expenses and managed day-to-day operations.He also had a business credit card.Throughout 2017, Bouvier met with board members and misled them about the state of their finances, giving incomplete documentation of how funds were being used, the decision said. Near the end of 2017, some employees’ paycheques were bouncing, and it was alleged that there were some cash sales being completed by Mr. Bouvier that were untracked.Bouvier was only at work one or two days a week, although it was supposed to be a full-time job. Community members from neighbouring Île-à-la-Crosse also “raised concerns with employees of CIBN about the amount of time and money Mr. Bouvier was spending at the Île-à-la-Crosse bar,” Segu wrote.The board went to the RCMP and eventually learned that $221,639 had gone missing.Bouvier pleaded guilty to fraud, admitting that “during 2017 he was addicted to crack cocaine and used the funds he obtained to pay for drugs, alcohol and for personal debt,” Segu wrote.Bouvier’s defence requested a sentencing circle, which Segu noted “showed a willingness to confront his victims head on.””The anger felt by the board members was clearly palpable at the sentencing circle, even eight years removed from the offence,” Segu said.Following the sentencing circle on June 17, the Crown and defence lawyers made their arguments on July 16. The Crown argued for a three-year prison sentence while the defence argued for a community-based sentence of two years less a day.Segu opted for a sentence of two years less day, to be served in the community, followed by three years probation. He also ordered Bouvier to pay back the money that he stole.Segu noted Bouvier had voluntarily entered treatment and has since gone on to become a counsellor.”Mr. Bouvier, in the intervening eight years since the offence was committed, has taken great strides to turn his life around. He has, by all accounts, successfully confronted and addressed his addiction to crack cocaine through self-sought treatment starting in 2019 rather than court-imposed treatment,” Segu wrote.”This is significant, in the sense that Mr. Bouvier’s motivation to rehabilitate himself comes from an internal desire to change, rather than a court-imposed directive to change.”Segu also noted that Bouvier had stolen the money to pay for his addiction, not for profit.ABOUT THE AUTHORDan Zakreski is a reporter for CBC Saskatoon.
Manager defrauded northern Sask. radio station of $221K to pay for crack cocaine
