Former Saskatchewan premier Brad Wall hired to review Manitoba Hydro megaprojects

Manitoba's government has hired former Saskatchewan premier Brad Wall to head up a review of two Manitoba Hydro megaprojects.

Wall will serve as the new commissioner of the Manitoba Hydro review, Crown Services Minister Jeff Wharton announced Thursday in a news release.

Wharton said the former leader of the right-of-centre Saskatchewan Party will finish a review already underway into the Keeyask generation project and the Bipole III transmission project.

The Keeyask generating station, still under construction, was originally estimated to cost $6.5 billion and expected to be in service by November of this year. In March 2017, Hydro revised the cost estimate to $8.7 billion.

The Bipole III transmission line was completed in 2018. The cost for the project was originally pegged in 2007 at $2.2 billion. In its 2018 annual report, Hydro said the total estimated cost was $5.04 billion.

Wall is taking over the review of the two projects from former B.C. premier Gordon Campbell, who was hired to conduct the review last year.

But in February, the province said Campbell would no longer be leading the review after sexual assault allegations against Campbell came to light. 

Wall will complete the review and report back to the province with recommendations, which Wharton said will help Premier Brian Pallister's Progressive Conservative government avoid mistakes he said were inherited from Manitoba's former NDP government.

Wall's review is expected to be finished by Oct. 31, 2020, Wharton said.

'A political exercise': NDP

Opposition NDP Leader Wab Kinew criticized Wall's appointment. 

"The appointment of Mr. Wall, the second conservative premier to take this position, emphasizes the fact that this review is just a political exercise meant to justify Mr. Pallister's cuts to Manitoba Hydro," he said in a statement.

Mandate letters sent earlier this year by the government to Crown corporations, including Manitoba Hydro, said "Centrally, we have reduced overall management by over 15% ... and reduced overall headcount by 8%. We expect you to work towards the same, or more."

Manitoba Hydro spokesperson Bruce Owen said in an email Friday the corporation reduced its workforce by 821 positions in 2017 through a voluntary buyout program, as well as a 30 per cent reduction in management that year.

"The Manitoba government is aware that we have already achieved our reduction targets and there is no indication that government will be seeking further reductions in staffing levels," Owen said.

"We achieved the reductions outlined in our most recent mandate letter primarily through the 2017 Voluntary Departure Program as well as a 30 per cent reduction in senior management positions in the same year."

Wall, who now works as a special adviser at national law firm Osler, Hoskin and Harcourt LLP, was premier of Saskatchewan from 2007 to 2018.