From the Daily Graphic

The construction of the PCU Centre at the fair grounds on Island Park in Portage la Prairie can carry on — for the time being.

The hearing into whether an injunction will be placed on construction while a notice of application filed by a group of concerned Rural Municipality of Portage ratepayers is heard by a judge was adjourned at the Court of Queen’s Bench in Portage on Thursday.

The ratepayers filed the notice of application against the RM in an attempt to quash their Aug. 14, 2007 vote allowing the RM to tax ratepayers for the $8 million in funding it has promised for the multiplex project.

Dean Giles, the lawyer representing the RM, and Grant Driedger, the lawyer for the group of concerned ratepayers, met in front of Justice Albert Clearwater on Thursday morning to discuss the motion for the injunction and review the sworn affidavits filed by both sides.

Giles spent nearly an hour bringing up objections to 18 separate paragraphs in two different affidavits filed by the ratepayers, arguing that much of the evidence was inadmissible because it contained hearsay, opinion and arguments. Justice Clearwater agreed with many of Giles’s points, striking whole paragraphs from the record and expunging words and sentences from parts of the ratepayer’s affidavits.