Manitoba to spend $2M on inquiry into Winnipeg's police headquarters

Manitoba will spend up to $2 million on its inquiry into the construction of Winnipeg's police headquarters, the NDP government announced Tuesday.

The province has selected labour lawyer Garth Smorang to serve as the commissioner for an inquiry that will review the the procurement and construction of a police headquarters in Manitoba's capital, as initially requested by a Winnipeg city council led by then-mayor Brian Bowman in 2017.

The police headquarters project, which saw the city purchase a former Canada Post office and warehouse complex and convert it into the new home of the Winnipeg Police Service, was completed in 2016 for $214 million, $79 million over the council-approved budget in 2011.

The project was also the subject of two external audits, a five-year RCMP investigation that concluded in 2019 without any charges, and civil litigation by the city against former chief administrative officer Phil Sheegl, primary contractor Caspian Construction and other contractors.

Smorang said Tuesday he plans to review all this previous work and determine what other information needs to be gathered.

"My role, I think, is to take those separate lenses into this issue, bring them together, try and make some sense of all of it, and then ask what more needs to be inquired into," he said at a press conference in the basement of the Manitoba Legislative Building.

No examination of Crown decision not to lay charges

According to an order in council issued last week, Smorang has been asked to "determine any measures that are necessary to restore public confidence in the ability of the city to implement large-scale, publicly funded construction projects in a cost-effective, timely, efficient and ethical manner."

He's also been asked to examine past and current city practices in order to "minimize construction cost increases and delays and to prevent dishonest practices or the acceptance of inducements."

What Smorang said he does not expect to do is find out why no charges were laid following the RCMP's five-year investigation into fraud, forgery and secret commissions related to the police headquarters.

"It won't be my job to second-guess the Crown attorneys. They are experts in what they do," the commissioner said.

Wiebe declined to say whether he asked why no charges were ever laid.

Smorang does, however, have the power to expand the scope of the inquiry and subpoena people to provide evidence. He said he is not certain if he will be able to enforce subpoenas issued to people who live out of province.

The commissioner also said he intends to hold public hearings as part of the inquiry, but has no intention of compelling people to provide information that has already been unearthed through previous investigations.

"The public needs to see that a process is being done. But I'm not going to call witnesses to sit up there and say things that we don't need them to say, or we've already established," said Smorang, citing the civil litigation against Sheegl as an example. 

"We know that favour was sought and an advantage was sought and advantage was given," Smorang said.

The litigation against Sheegl concluded in 2022 with a court ruling that the former CAO had accepted a $327,200 bribe from Caspian principal Armik Babakhanians and must pay the city $1.1 million.

Sheegl lost an appeal of that decision in 2023, when the appeal court determined Sheegl engaged in 14 breaches of duty between 2010 and 2012 — and that former Winnipeg mayor Sam Katz can be considered a material witness, even though he was not a party to the lawsuit and is not accused of any wrongdoing.

The city's lawsuit against Caspian and other contractors was settled in 2023, when Babakhanians and the other defendants agreed to pay the city no less than $21.5 million.

The two civil suits utilized thousands of documents amassed by the RCMP during its investigation of the project. While city officials have stated those documents have illuminated many aspects of the project, Mayor Scott Gillingham welcomed the provincial government's decision to hold an inquiry.

"Any information that could shed light on what happened is information I welcome," the mayor said Tuesday at city hall.

Robert Tapper, a Winnipeg lawyer who has in the past represented Sheegl and Katz, questioned why an inquiry is taking place so long after the events in question concluded.

"I am talking as a lawyer who has practiced law for north of 50 years and saying, I've never seen anything like this. Waiting 10, 12 years to do an inquiry — that's just something that is shocking," said Tapper, who has not spoken with his former clients about the inquiry and said he is not speaking on their behalf.

"They're expecting people to remember details that occurred 10, 12 years ago," he said, adding the events in question occurred "eons ago."

Smorang said Tapper is a good lawyer and that he would say the same thing if he were in Tapper's position.

Wiebe, however, said "it's never too late for public accountability."

Inquiry scope narrower than council's request

The police-HQ inquiry will be far narrower in scope than the inquiry city council had formally requested from the provincial government eight years ago.

In 2017, when Brian Pallister was Manitoba's premier and Brian Bowman served as Winnipeg's mayor, city council voted to ask the province to launch a public inquiry into "any and all matters" related to the construction of Winnipeg's police headquarters and a series of municipal real estate transactions that were examined in a 2014 external review.

Those transactions included the the Parker land swap, the purchase of the Canada Post complex that became the police headquarters, the aborted sale of vacant land near the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, and the city sales of the Winnipeg Square parkade and the former Canad Inns Stadium site.

A broader inquiry on this scale likely would have cost the province more than $2 million. The Charbonneau commission, Quebec's public inquiry into construction-industry corruption, cost $35 million by the time it was completed in 2015.

In Manitoba, the inquiry into the death of Phoenix Sinclair cost $14 million by the time its final report was presented in 2014.

The proposed cost of the police-headquarters inquiry is closer to two Manitoba inquiries conducted nearly two decades ago: the $3-million inquiry into the wrongful conviction of James Driskell, which wrapped up in 2007; and the $2.6-million, 2008 inquiry into police conduct following the death of Crystal Taman.

Wiebe denied the cost factored into the decision to limit it to the police inquiry, which he cited as the best example of a project gone awry.

"If you ask the average person on the street, they know about this project," he said.

Smorang has been provided with a limited time frame to conduct his work. He must submit a completed report by Jan. 1, 2027.