'We've got bigger issues,' says Pallister as he rejects calls for Winnipeg public inquiry
Mayor wanted further scrutiny of city issues; Premier calls Hydro a bigger fish to fry
There are only so many troubled government projects the province can afford to investigate, Premier Brian Pallister said as he explained his rationale for rejecting city hall's request for a public inquiry into Winnipeg's construction and real-estate problems.
On Friday, the RCMP concluded a five-year investigation into the construction of Winnipeg's police headquarters without laying charges. Mayor Brian Bowman immediately renewed a 2017 city council call for a public inquiry into the police HQ as well as other projects and real-estate transactions that were the subject of city audits in 2013 and 2014.
Pallister, who repeatedly stated an inquiry would not proceed while the RCMP were investigating the police HQ, suggested the province has a limited capacity to investigate issues he characterized as over-budget construction projects.
"There's only so much digging up on past issues that we can do or afford to do, quite frankly," Pallister said Monday at the Manitoba legislative building.
"I mean, we can investigate every overspend of every project, I suppose, if we chose to put our resources to that. And there are many numerous provincially and at the civic level that we can investigate."
In 2017, city council voted 15-1 to ask the province to call a public inquiry into "any and all matters" related to the real-estate transactions and capital-procurement problems that plagued the city during previous administrations.
Those included the purchase of the former Canada Post building, the construction of the police HQ within that complex, the construction of four new fire-paramedic stations, the Parker land swap, the aborted sale of downtown surface-parking lot Parcel Four and the sales of both the Winnipeg Square Parkade and former site of Canad Inns Stadium.
City council did not request an examination of overspending. The call for an inquiry, crafted by Bowman, asked the provincial government "to conduct a broad systemic examination of all processes and procedures affecting the conduct of business between elected officials and senior public service members employed by the city and parties with whom the city may conduct business."
Pallister said there is no further need to scrutinize the police-headquarters project after the RCMP concluded its work.
Asked whether he would see any benefit in hearing from former Winnipeg chief administrative officer Phil Sheegl — who signed off on the main police-HQ contract and was a central figure in the fire-paramedic station construction project, among other issues — Pallister said he does not want to second-guess the Mounties.
The premier also suggested the cost of the inquiry requested by city hall may outweigh the potential benefits of the investigation, especially as the province investigates overspending on Manitoba Hydro's Keeyask hydro-electric project and Bipole III transmission line.
"We've got bigger issues that we're investigating right now in terms of things like the Bipole project [and] the Keeyask project. We had massive overruns in them that are far larger than this," Pallister said.
Mayor Brian Bowman's office said the mayor was unavailable for comment.
Former Canadian Taxpayers Federation prairie director Colin Craig, who forwarded whistleblower complaints about the police HQ to Manitoba Justice in 2014, said the city could still benefit from the inquiry.
"There are still lots of questions haven't been answered to the headquarters project and getting answers to them might help the city save money in the future," Craig said on Monday.
