Michael Matvieshen.
Image Credit: FACEBOOK: Michael Matvieshen
May 11, 2023 - 6:00 AM
A Kelowna businessman charged with late filing of taxes five years ago failed to turn up to court today for the start of his trial, delaying it yet again.
Michael Bradley Matvieshen, born 1962, was charged in 2018 with three counts of failing to comply with the Income Tax Act and was scheduled to start his trial on the charges yesterday, May 10.
However, neither Matvieshen nor his lawyer showed up at the Kelowna courthouse.
BC Provincial Court Judge Michelle Daneliuk said this was the seventh time the trial had been adjourned.
"This history of this file is quite outrageous," she told the court. "This history... is not acceptable to the court."
Matvieshen, who has been involved in numerous companies in various roles, was the CEO and director of Indigenous Bloom and is still a major shareholder of the cannabis company. He was originally supposed to go to trial on the charges in January 2020, but for reasons unexplained, it has been constantly delayed.
The court heard how there may have been a scheduling issue with the defence lawyer's office and the case was adjourned for a later date.
It's not known how much tax Matvieshen is alleged to have avoided paying but the charges relate to the year 2018.
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It's also not the first time Matvieshen has been in court for tax issues.
In 2016 he was fined $12,500 and jailed for one day – although likely didn't see a jail cell – for failing to comply with an order to file the corporate tax returns for several of his companies.
Matvieshen was behind Indigenous Bloom, one of the first unlicenced "grey area" cannabis stores in the Okanagan.
The popular store opened on a parcel of Okanagan Indian Band land on the border between Lake Country and Kelowna in 2019.
In 2018 Matvieshen was President and Co-Chairman of cannabis firm Indigenous Roots Corp. which attracted a high-profile board of directors including former MP and City of Kelowna councillor Ron Cannan and current Westbank First Nation Chief Robert Louie.
Last month, Oakum Cannabis Corp. filed a civil suit against Indigenous Bloom alleging it wasn't paid $160,000 in share agreements.
In the nineties, Matvieshen and his company Harvest Environmental Services were charged with 42 counts under the Waste Management Act after being accused of burning unlicensed material at the firm's Kelowna and Prince George sites.
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However, a judge found the officials had breached his charter rights during the seizure of documents and the case was thrown out.
— This story was corrected at 1:07 p.m. April 26, 2024 to clarify that the allegations involved late filing of taxes, not tax evasion.
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