Contractors accused of rigging Manitoba Housing bids plead guilty, face fines
5 Brandon-area men charged by Competition Bureau in 2022
Five contractors in the Brandon area must pay tens of thousands of dollars in fines after pleading guilty Wednesday to conspiracy offences in a bid-rigging scheme involving Manitoba Housing renovation projects.
The men were charged in December 2022 following a Competition Bureau investigation that alleged they manipulated dozens of government contracts from 2011 to 2016.
Geoff Gregoire, Guy Pringle, James Kauk, Ryan Lamont and Doug Gunnarson were charged with conspiracy to commit fraud over $5,000 under the Criminal Code and conspiring to allocate contracts under the Competition Act.
The fraud charges were stayed on Wednesday and they all pleaded guilty to the Competition Act charges as part of a plea bargain. The defendants agreed to pay fines ranging from $24,000 to $61,000 based on the length of time they were involved in the scheme.
"The victim here is Manitoba Housing," said Crown attorney Dan Manning at the Court of King's Bench hearing in Brandon.
"Any loss is ultimately borne by the taxpayer."
WATCH | Brandon contractors plead guilty following Competition Act investigation:
Richard Wolson, who represented two of the defendants, told court the plea ends a "very long saga" for his clients and that has "left a lot of scars."
The agreed statement of facts filed in court says before the defendants submitted offers for Manitoba Housing contracts, they discussed the bids among themselves.
This was discovered through text messages and emails collected by the Competition Bureau, an independent law enforcement agency focused on ensuring market competition, during a 2017 search warrant.
The communications showed a similar pattern for each bid, with the defendants deciding who would "win" each bid and circulating the price of the winning bid by text. The "losing" contractor submitted a higher bid to Manitoba Housing, the agreed statement of facts said.
The Crown was able to prove that 54 bids were involved in this scheme. The bids were worth about $3.5 million in total, but the Crown couldn't establish how much was an "overcharge," court heard.
Josh Weinstein, the lawyer for two of the contractors, told the court their work was of "good value" and the fact they entered a guilty plea saves the courts months of time.
The highest fine was given to Gregoire, who "won" 15 bids and was involved from the beginning of the scheme, court documents say.
The lowest fine was given to Lamont, who "won" six bids and was involved for the shortest period. He stopped participating in 2014 and began to bid competitively against the agreement once he was out, court documents say.
Crown attorney Dan Manning told court there were issues with the case that led to this being a fair and reasonable deal. This included a key witness who entered an immunity agreement with the bureau and who the defence argued was unreliable and self-serving.
A motion had been filed to get the charges thrown out because of the delay in charging the contractors, court heard, and there were issues with some of the seized evidence.
"We normally would be seeking jail time for these kinds of offences," Manning said after the hearing. "But with some of the issues we had … we came to a fair solution."
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